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Recently, it has been overcast, cloudy and grey here in Arizona.

This was actually a welcome change, as this past October had been with absolutely no rain during the entire month.

Now, as many of you know, I do love my sunshine...which we do have in abundance , particularly in this dry autumn.

So, the past few afternoon walks have been  quite pleasant under cloudy skies...leaving the hat and sunglasses home.

I noticed that the dried autumnal brush and undergrowth had taken on rich coloring...seemingly even more so in the grey light.

The rabbit brush, mesquite, and other chapparal were shades of golds, ochres, and  rust ...all colors that would look dried out and dull brown in the strong sunshine. In other words, in the greyed light, the local color was allowed to take center stage without the influence of  strong light and shadow patterns.

Here is a photo from my walk.

And here is a pastel painting that was influenced by my outing.

"Ochre Afternoon", pastel, 12x12

The sun was trying to come out from the overlying clouds, but was just a weak patch of brightness. This piece has a very different color palette from  the usual bleached  corals, violets and turquoise of the southwestern landscape, under the strong sun.The branches and scrub also were a deep charcoal in color...appearing more like a silhouette, which set off the yellows ,aqua and sage colors of the low lying scrub.

This was a nice switch ...a refreshing change. 

I did miss posting last Sunday...and yesterday. I hosted an area open studio, and will post about that at another time.

Last week I was teaching down in the Phoenix area. 

Our first day was spent outdoors, and I started with a demo. For the first session, I usually throw out a lot of information, and paint while talking. My main focus was to explain how I start my location pastels, the equipment I use, and the importance of a thumbnail, or value sketch. Sometimes when my focus is on getting the info across, I do NOT always do  great demo . such was the case for this one.

I knew that the students were excited to get in to their own work, so I was not really worried about it, and I had done a pretty good demo the day before. The rest of the day was spent going around and working with people individually.

"Saguaros Study", pastel, 9x12

At the end of the day, after all went home, I stayed behind to catch my breath, and to just watch the light change. I wanted to wait until the light got really dramatic, then I got my pastels out, and set to work. Because I had been just watching...in a very concentrated way all day long, I knew just what to focus on in my own work. I was able to get right in to the painting very easily. I was accurately noticing color, shapes, editing, and all of the other things that I had been concentrating on while I was helping students with their paintings.

The painting above was the result...which went easily, and a much better effort than the first one of the day.

I shared it with the students the next day, and talked about how when you are concentrating on observation all day long, things take on subtle nuances, and it is much easier to step in to the zone....and that is when something special can happen.