Painting of the Day, October 25, 2011

By Donna Poulton

Credit: Permission of the artist

Arturo Chavez, Rock of Ages, 2010, oil on linen on panel, 80 x 160 in.

A brilliant colorist, Arturo Chavez paints the West on an epic scale.  His Grand Canyon scene, Rock of Ages, captures the sweeping view that is too much to comprehend at one glance. He offers the light hitting the rock (pictured in the detail below) as an anchor from which to gain entry into the panorama.

Chavez has hit his stride in the last few years winning the West Select Purchase Prize in Phoenix and the Harrison Eiteljorg Purchase Award at the Eiteljorg Museum. He is featured in a number of magazines and books and will be featured in the upcoming book Art Journey America. I look forward to every new painting coming out of his studio.

Painting of the Day, October 21, 2011

By Donna Poulton

Thomas Moran (1837 – 1926), Pack Trail, Grand Canyon, grisaille on board, 11 x 6 in. 

The value range achieved with grisaille, or the use of monochromatic color, made it easier for Moran to translate the sketch Pack Trail, Grand Canyon into a black and white lithograph that would have been used for one of the many commissions he did for magazines and newspapers.