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Media: Oil Sketch on Ampersand Gesso Panel
Size: 3x4 in
There is something singular about the perception of
space and distance in the West. I first
began to feel this when first crossing the Cascade Range in Oregon from the Willamette
Valley to the High Desert, and I realized that I could see where I'd been two
hours before and sixty miles off in the distance. Again and again his happens when travelling
out here. On Thanksgiving Day in 2012,
and the day after, while heading east from Oregon to Oklahoma, this would
happen again and again with even greater distances. Here on the edge of the Grand Canyon one
looks down thousands of feet and miles across to the opposite rim and, and as
you come to terms with the actuality of those distances you realize how long it
might take you to walk those distances.
I can well understand those first Spanish explorers with Coronado, who upon
looking down from the South Rim for the first time, thought that the "little
brook" a few hundreds of feet below could be easily stepped across; or so they
thought until members of their party actually climbed down and confronted the Colorado
River itself; then they had to climb back up!
I proceeded as with the earlier painting, with a brush drawing in Cobalt
Blue, and gain no imprimatura; the
pigments used were the same as the morning, being Cobalt Blue, Venetian Red,
Yellow Ochre, Naples Yellow (hue), Cadmium Red, and Titanium White. The lovely quiet greens, were mixed from the blue
and both yellows and the white; I'm always surprised with the various greens one
can get with these subdued yellows.
There is something singular about the perception of
space and distance in the West. I first
began to feel this when first crossing the Cascade Range in Oregon from the Willamette
Valley to the High Desert, and I realized that I could see where I'd been two
hours before and sixty miles off in the distance. Again and again his happens when travelling
out here. On Thanksgiving Day in 2012,
and the day after, while heading east from Oregon to Oklahoma, this would
happen again and again with even greater distances. Here on the edge of the Grand Canyon one
looks down thousands of feet and miles across to the opposite rim and, and as
you come to terms with the actuality of those distances you realize how long it
might take you to walk those distances.
I can well understand those first Spanish explorers with Coronado, who upon
looking down from the South Rim for the first time, thought that the "little
brook" a few hundreds of feet below could be easily stepped across; or so they
thought until members of their party actually climbed down and confronted the Colorado
River itself; then they had to climb back up!
I proceeded as with the earlier painting, with a brush drawing in Cobalt
Blue, and gain no imprimatura; the
pigments used were the same as the morning, being Cobalt Blue, Venetian Red,
Yellow Ochre, Naples Yellow (hue), Cadmium Red, and Titanium White. The lovely quiet greens, were mixed from the blue
and both yellows and the white; I'm always surprised with the various greens one
can get with these subdued yellows.
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Available Paintings by Steven Thor Johanneson
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