"ADOBE WALLS-SANTA FE" - WORK IN PROGRESS

"ADOBE WALLS-SANTA FE" - A Work in Progress -- This photo is of the painting after it has been glazed; now I will work on the opaque paints and hope to finish it sometime this next week..... DC, Taos, N.M.

"LAST LIGHT" - 9"X12" ARCHIVAL GICLEE (Click here to purchase)

"LAST LIGHT" (TAOS)

A late afternoon view from my kitchen window

NEW SIZE!  9"X12 STUDION EDITION PRINT

TAOS SNOW DAY!!

3 December - View through my kitchen window - First significant snow of the season.  Am ready!  The "extra" snow day groceries are in the pantry, all my painting supplies are in -- going to varnish and frame some small paintings today - and prepare my palette to start some new underpaintings tomorrow!  I love it!   DC

GESSOING CANVAS -- PREPARING TO PAINT

PREPARING TO SPEND THE WINTER PAINTING!  GESSOING CANVAS.  For large and medium paintings I usually use a double-primed linen canvas.  I mix up gesso with Payne's Grey.  This creates a "grisaille", or a grey ground, much favored by the Renaissance painters.  Letting each coat dry thoroughly between applications, I apply two or three coats, depending on the coarseness of the canvas.  Personally I like to smooth out the brush strokes on the gesso.  Because I work with glazing, I find that this is the best preparation for my paints.   Let these canvases "cure" for a week or so -- don't stack them together until they have dried thoroughly.  This is the first step to good painting -- once I start, I don't have to worry about "white spaces" and this "toned ground" mellows out my colors.  Stay tuned!  DC 

#7806 - PASSING STORM-Archival Giclee - Click here to Purchase

"PASSING STORM"

NEW ARCHIVAL GICLEE - Follow above link for details.

GIVING THANKS.....

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

"VALDEZ AFTERNOON" - SOLD

"VALDEZ AFTERNOON"-Sold

NEW!  8"X10" Original Oil/Fr. in Gold

7-Day Auction beginning Wed. November 11th

WINTER ROAD - Special Print Offer - Visit the HIGH ROAD PRINT CATALOGUE

"WINTER ROAD"

Winter on the road to the ranch at Llano Quemado (suburban Truchas). My first winter there was an unknown -- I bought a little freezer from Sears and filled it to the brim with groceries. Foresight was rewarded when it snowed for days over the Christmas holidays -- the snowplow didn't come through for a week -- the wood was stacked on the porch (in the morning, bear prints in the snow), the fireplace kept the little adobe house warm and cozy, and many pots of green chile stew made for quite a comfortable existence. I might add a lot of good books and great music added another measure of enjoyment -- solitude is so underrated!

Purchase any two prints from THE HIGH ROAD PRINT CATALOGUE  and get one FREE!  Offer good until 30 November 2009.  Call (575)758-7454 to order.  Visa, Mastercard available.

DOS ARBOLES DE TAOS - Click here to visit THE PRINT STORE

3 November  -FYI -- Have begun a new web log entitled "THE PRINT STORE".  This blog will be a venue for new print images, both small and large, available through my Taos studio.  It is my intention to post to this blog on a regular basis.  You are invited to bookmark that page and visit often.  If you have any questions or would like to make an order, just give me a call at (575) 758-7454. - DC

"EVENING PRAYER STICKS" - Click here for the High Road Print Catalogue

"EVENING PRAYER STICKS"

ARCHIVAL GICLEE - FOR MORE INFO VISIT

THE HIGH ROAD PRINT CATALOGUE

(SPECIAL OFFER ENDING 30 NOVEMBER - BUY TWO, GET ONE FREE)

"RIO CHIQUITO - SOLD

"LA PUERTA DE SANTA FE" - SOLD

"LA PUERTA DE SANTA FE" (CANYON RD.)
10"x8" Orig. Oil/Linen - Fr. Silver/Linen Liner
SOLD

"ACEQUIA DEL LLANO" - Archival Giclee (Click here for THE HIGH ROAD PRINT CATALOGUE"

22 October 2009 - Still cloudy today -- much to do -- some shopping for extras in anticipation of large snowstorm like the one that hit us last year. Shipping a painting off to a collector in Maine. Focus for the next four or five months....new paintings (the large "environment" canvases and small auction pieces), internet sales. Winter is always a long period of preparation. Am feeling quite free to follow my Muse wherever she leads me......DC, Taos, N.M.

WINTER DREAMS - Click to Visit the High Road Print Catalogue

21 October 2009 -- Cloudy, raining - just looked out of my kitchen window to the hills in the distance -- SNOW! My first thought was "I'm not ready for winter"! Going to visit with son, John, today -- fix him a nice lunch. Clean up the studio -- set up a new palette -- pull out some good music to inspire me - and settle in to do some serious painting. I actually love the quiet of winter -- it's time to stop striving, relax and just put a blank canvas on the easel and lose myself in some new work! DC

48"x60" Original Oil Painting "FIRST LIGHT"

"FIRST LIGHT"
48"x60" Original Oil on Fine Belgian Linen
Call Taos Studio (575)758-7454

Earth, give me back your pristine gifts,
towers of silence which rose from
the solemnity of their roots.
I want to go back to being what I haven't been,
to learn to return from such depths
that among all natural things
I may live or not live. I don't mind
being one stone more, the dark stone,
the pure stone that the river bears away.

ABSENCE AND PRESENCE, Pablo Neruda

FIRST LIGHT - 48"X60" WORK IN PROGRESS - OPAQUE COLORS

23 September 2009 - Making progress! Have concentrated on the top one-third of the painting. The sky and distant landscape are completed and, I believe, inform the light for the rest of the canvas. The middle ground - I have found some long forgotten tubes of Transparent Oxide Yellow and Transparent Oxide Red -- Am also mixing Indian Red, Mars Orange, Ochre and Chrome Oxide Green Opaque. This painting is taking on a life of it's own -- it's like the movie "The Red Shoes" -- Moira Shearer couldn't stop dancing and I can't stop painting! DC

FIRST LIGHT - 48"x60" Oil Painting (Work in Progress)

21 September 2009, Taos, N.M. -- "PENTIMENTI is an alteration in a painting....that the artist has changed his mind as to the composition during the process of painting - the word derives from the Italian pentirsi, meaning to repent".

First of all I changed the name from "Donde Nace la Vida" to "FIRST LIGHT" - (48"x60 Original Oil on Fine Belgian Linen) -- and then I began "deconstructing" the composition - am trying to simplify as much as I can so that the light is the subject of the painting. Sky: Combinations of Permalba White, Cadmium Yellow, Payne's Grey and Davy's Grey. Middle Ground: Yellow Ochre, White, and Mars Orange. Foreground: Grasses - Burnt Sienna, Prussian Blue and Chrome Oxide Green Opaque. River: Prussian Blue and Burnt Sienna. I will be working on this canvas for the next three or four weeks and will try to blog my progress as I go along. DC

DONDE NACE LA VIDA - 48"x60" UNDERPAINTING

(PLEASE CHECK OCTOBER 13, 2009 POST  TO VIEW COMPLETED CANVAS NOW TITLED
"FIRST LIGHT" --"DONDE NACE LA VIDA" (UNDERPAINTING) -- NEW 48"X60" Original Oil on Fine Belgian Linen -- Started the drawing for this canvas in late May. Tomorrow I will post the photo of this underpainting with the first layer of glazes. Have passed the canvas 15/25 times a day as it stands on the wall directly across from my easel -- realize that I want to change things -- I want the mood to change - a dreamier feeling, perhaps. At this stage in a painting, I have a picture in my head of what I want it to be -- once the painting takes over, it's out of my control -- the canvas evolves and it just "becomes". In the next couple of weeks I will post the "pentimenti" -- the changes. You are invited to follow this Work in Progress to it's finish.......DC

ARROYO SECO AFTERNOON - Click here for the HIGH ROAD PRINT CATALOGUE

"ARROYO SECO AFTERNOON" - Now available as an archival giclee print from THE HIGH ROAD PRINT CATALOGUE. (BUY TWO, GET ONE FREE).

9/9/09 -- Have had good intentions all week, but unable to get into the studio. Making green chile chicken soup for daughter Mary and her husband's visit tomorrow. On Friday a visit from my favorite "little people". Am going to relax and enjoy them all, knowing that there will be many winter days when I will wish they were here. In the meantime I will post images from my print catalogue.

Birthday Roses in the Morning Sun

5 September 2009 -- Another year! Friend John sent these roses from LA -- they are brightening my kitchen bookcase this morning -- making me smile. This was one of those BIG birthdays that brought up a lot of strange feelings of getting older -- one remedy for that is for me to get back to painting this coming week. Have replenished my paint supplies -- gessoed my boards and canvases -- have new material for new work. I want to continue with my 100 SMALL PAINTINGS and have several larger paintings in progress. Will begin new posts Tuesday - stay tuned.