Joe and I took a trip out west to attend both the Oil Painters of America convention and the International Guild of Realism's "Rendezvous in Scottsdale" Annual Exhibition in 2024. I was juried into the IGOR show with some amazing artists and while we were out there we decided to venture up into the Grand Canyon!

Wow! What an incredible sight to behold. It was very windy and cold that day in April but I still managed to do a color study before we left. My intention with this piece was to convey the depth and expanse of that place. I had two choices, landscape or portrait and I chose portrait so that I could communicate what it felt like from the edge where I was standing. Many have already shared that when they view this piece, they gasp and can feel that distance downward. What a compliment!

It is my hope that those who view this work can appreciate that too!

I started this piece with the brunaille underpainting process where I establish the values. I found that especially helpful in this rendering because of the complexity of the atmosphere depth in all directions! I followed with a combination of color passes involving the ala prima technique to achieve the sfumato softening of edges I so love and also scumbling and glazing once the colors were dry on subsequent passes. My color palette included Venetian Red in all of my mixes to obtain color harmony throughout.