Painting in the Magnificent Death Valley April, 2007
I have been to Death Valley, one of my favorite places in the world, many times, and I have friends who live within a five hours drive, who have, to my amazement, never been to this magnificent place. I loved it years before I began to paint it, and when I began to paint it, I realized that I had never really seen it. I have written about Death Valley at least twice before, http://www.worldsworsttourist.com/deathvalley.htm, and here I will emphasize the artistic character of the valley. The best way to drive to Death Valley from Los Angeles is to take highway 395 through the Mojave Desert. After leaving Interstate 15, painting scenes present themselves in the form of mountains, ghost towns, clouds, and Joshua trees. It gets better and better as one passes through Red Mountain and turns east on Trona Road. To the northwest of Red Mountain, the ghost town of Randsburg, http://www.ghosttowns.com/states/ca/randsburg.html , presents the first major temptation to divert for a while. Between Red Mountain and Trona the colors get more and more intense and after Trona, the drive along winding mountain roads, overlooking vast dry lakes, are breathtaking. One would be extremely tempted to set up an easel and go no further. But press on. It gets even better.
Typical View along Trona Road-Clouds in this part of the desert are always spectacular. Nearing Death Valley National Park, one faces a choice to take the main highway 91 straight up the mountain to Stovepipe Wells or to drive the rugged, often non-existent, road through Wildrose Canyon. The choice depends on how big a rush you are in to get somewhere. I usually choose the latter, (but never do it at night) and even though the route is shorter, it takes longer. Along Wildrose Canyon Road, two attractions, the ghost town of Skidoo, http://www.ghosttowns.com/states/ca/skidoo.html , and the charcoal kilns, once used to produce charcoal for Skidoo, lend further temptation, either of which would make good painting sites. (Make sure you have excellent tires and a good spare.) We diverted to drive the seven miles of gravel road to the charcoal kilns in a light snow, which is not uncommon in winter, but was rather surprising in April. One of the gravels turned out to be a large, sharp rock, knocking a finger-sized hole in the sidewall of my left front tire. Fortunately, I had a good full-sized spare. There are many tempting off road drives that carry this risk, so one should exercise the proper caution and be prepared with a spare, water, and the ability to walk several miles in whatever climate fits the season. I was not able to replace the spare until we reached Las Vegas two days later so this placed a few constraints on the remainder of this visit. No more off road adventures.
Charcoal Kilns-Here they made charcoal for the nearby gold rush town of Skidoo Back on the main highway, after a twenty mile drive we passed through Stovepipe wells, the small settlement at the northwest entrance to the park, followed by the main sand dunes, which lie just left of the highway. Sand Dunes Over the years I have optimized the way to visit and paint at the various painting sites. For the sand dunes there is definitely a best way and here it is: On the night before the visit, check the time of sunrise. If you are staying in Furnace Creek, 20 miles away, which is, hands down, the best choice for Death Valley, then rise one hour before sunrise and walk outside your cabin to check for stars. A sky full of stars portends a clear morning, so don't even think about going back to bed. Pack a jug of water, thermos of coffee and maybe an apple, and backtrack the twenty miles north about 45 minutes before sunrise. Park along the highway, about midway in front of the san dunes near the tourist information sign for the dunes and make tracks for the tallest one. From this point on you get rewards for your diligence. There will be almost no one here (Hopefully, only a few people will read this and follow directions.). During the previous night the wind will have blown away all the people tracks from yesterday, so yours will be the first to mess up the wind sculpture and natural formations. Look carefully and you'll see critter tracks everywhere from the previous night when all the critters are out looking for a meal. Some of them tell a story. Bug tracks get joined by those of a larger animal, dragging a tail where the bug tracks disappear where the larger critter dined. Sometimes two animal tracks meet and the sand tells of a duel that took place.
One of the tallest dunes The first direct sun light you see will be from residual clouds that light up like beacons in the sky, soon followed by the tops of the mountains in the west, then the dunes and finally the tops of bushes. It is still quite cool and when the sun peaks over the eastern mountains, the first rays hit you with a welcomed blast of warmth. Now you will see some of the greatest, longest shadows ever. The shadows facilitate seeing the waves in the sand formed by the winds as well as the many critter tracks. Shadows on the dunes make them appear razor sharp at the top and they begin to change at lightning speed; it is time to locate a good painting spot and go to work.
Long Shadows at sunrise emphasize features and critter tracks. Notice the wind patterns in the sand.
Sunrise on the dunes. The tallest things light up first. It doesn't take long to find a pleasing composition; there are so many possibilities. (This would be a wonderful place to do nudes with a natural background very suggestive of female curves and mounds.) I like the contrast between the bright and shadowed sides of the smooth sand dunes with the rugged mountains behind. The usual problem of the pleine aire painter with shadows changing is amplified in the san dunes, where the lit up areas seem to change at lightning speed. By the time you paint one part of the painting, you see shadows that were not there when you started. After spending a couple of hours on the dunes you can hightail it back to Furnace Creek and treat yourself to the huge, well-earned buffet breakfast at the Wrangler Steak House before 9 AM. Or if you can't make it by nine, drop in on the restaurant at Stovepipe Wells, just up the road.]
Death Valley 02, Watercolor on paper, 11"x22". Collection of Margaret Christie, Yorkshire, UK. Sand Dunes offer endless painting subjects with shadows changing by the minute. Painted from a photograph that Margaret took just after sunrise when we took her to Death Valley. The park service rightly warns visitors of the dangers of the san dunes. Especially in mid day, temperatures rise, and that combined with the effort needed to climb the dunes or even to walk in the loose sand can drain ones energy fast. People die out here of heat stroke. If you are going to paint long, an umbrella would be a wise tool to use.
Femscape071-Foreground Painted from the model and the background from memory At the northwest end of the valley at Hell's Gates is a wonderful mid day painting location. The view across the valley provides a perfect example of atmospheric perspective. The foreground contains plants, colorful flowers and rocks and the mountains in the foreground are colorful, sharp, and full of contrast. With distance the rows of mountains are visible up to 100 or so miles with the most distant fading to gray and almost indistinguishable from the sky. The land between is streaked with a rainbow of colors caused by the various minerals in the desert. And the clouds over the valley are often painting subjects themselves. An occasional tourist will venture over from the roadside toilet to investigate and comment on your painting. Atmospheric perspective from Hell's Gate. Both color and contrast identify distance. At furnace creek, where you should be staying, if you took my advice, one finds acres of stuff to paint, like old wagons, stagecoaches, a train, and all kinds of flowers that make for another painting venue. This is best at mid day when shadows are at their best, and you can always take a break in the Corkscrew Saloon.
Painting at Hell's Gate-Painted in 2002
Twenty mule team borax wagon at Furnace Creel Ranch Zabriskie Point
On this trip we spent two nights and three days in the valley before heading on to Las Vegas. On the first evening we caught the early bird special at the Wrangler Steakhouse and turned in early (Show up before 6 and you get good deals). The next morning we headed for Zebriskie Point, which provides a look down on Death Valley from a vantage point of a few hundred feet above the valley floor. This would make an excellent place to set up an easel, though you will be hounded by tourists, since bus loads are dumped at this easily accessible point. I am just waiting for the day when they open a Starbucks here. In a place like Death Valley there is always a struggle about how much scenery to see and how much to sit and be with and paint. I find that I rarely “see” such places until I start to paint them. Then I sit and meditate and study the cracks, shadows, colors and contrasts and continue to discover amazing details. One trade off is sometimes to do much less detailed “studies” in a notebook that try and capture some of the feeling with the possibility that I can do a better painting later using a photograph along with the study to complete a more elegant painting. Here is a quick study done at Zabriskie Point. Dante's View Another 15 miles takes you up to an absolute must painting site at Dante's View overlooking hundreds of miles of Death Valley. From the parking lot at the top a quarter mile trail takes you to a peak, where few people go, to a place with an excellent panorama of Death Valley 5500 feet below. It is likely to be cool or even cold and always windy up here so take a jacket with you. No photo will ever capture this view; here you discover the epitome of what pleine aire painting is all about. As you sit amongst the rocks, looking out across the valley a gentle and often cold breeze always blows, birds soar around you, and it seems very quiet. The snow capped Telescope Peak rises above a parched valley and a hundred miles to the north mountains, fade into a clear blue sky. The white salt rivers below wind amongst every color in the rainbow. A painting done here contains a kind of excitement that is not possible in any photograph or painting taken from a photograph. You simply can't feel what you feel here in person by looking at a photo of this. You just have to be here. I am never ready to leave this spot, and I only leave after promising myself that I will return here.
Dante's View looking north
Painting from Dante's View done in 2002. We always drop in at the visitor's center to register and ask the rangers where the best desert flowers can be seen. Death Valley is somewhat binary in the occurrence of flowers. If it has rained in the desert in recent weeks, you are in for a real treat. You may not even need the ranger's advice. Fields of flowers are everywhere you look. If rain has been rare, then a ranger may be able to help you locate pockets of flowers in the most unsuspecting places. A ranger directed us to the east border of the park near the entrance sign, 50 meters off the highway over a mound of rocks to a river bed, and there we found acres of flowers of many varieties. We would never have found such a spot without the ranger's help. This particular spot is a good place for a picnic, but there is a painting venue that is perfect for sundown so don't hang out here too long.
Desert flowers in a dry river bed Artist's Drive Actually, sun down owns many good venues, but my favorite is Artist's Palette along the 7 mile one way Artist's Drive that leaves the Valley floor. All along Artists Drive good painting venues can be located, and since this is an off road drive, there are rarely many tourists to screw up the view. My favorite is Artist's Palette about half way through the drive. The trick is to set up an easel at Artist's pallet about an hour before sun down and enjoy the show. Here you face a canyon through mountains to the east. Different minerals in the soil make the landscape before you appear like an artist's palette with reds, purples, greens, and yellows.
Artist's Palette At this point the sun is so bright that the colors appear very subtle, almost bleached out on your retina. As the sun begins its decent behind the mountains on the west side of the valley, a shadow moves slowly up your field of view. By this time you need to have the painting composed, laid out, a base coat with some hint of shadows and colors, and a few colors already mixed. As the shadow covers more and more of the field of view, your eyes gain sensitivity to color, and rich colors begin to develop in the darkened foreground. Suddenly, shadows that were very subtle explode with contrast, and it is a struggle to keep up. Finally, when all but the last peak is in shadow, that peak becomes an intense gold cone behind saturated colors in the foreground. My brain oscillates between the desire to stare in awe and ecstasy and the desire to paint it.
Artist's Palette
Artist's Palette Study done in 2007-5”x14” Once again, you experience something a photograph can never offer, and you rediscover pleine aire painting. After the sun goes down, the drive back to the main highway faces a sunset that can be extremely colorful when there are clouds to catch the late sun. But by now we had earned another steak in the Wrangler Steak House so we avoid the temptation to linger. Death Valley as hundreds of square miles of painting scenes, but some of the best require a few miles of driving on rough rocky roads. A few of the gold mines still have structures around them. Some, like Golden Canyon, are easier than others to reach. Some like Mosaic Canyon require some rather treacherous walking, but offer amazing formations and colors.
Mosaic Canyon Ryolite The best ghost town for painting is Rhyolite, just outside the north east exit from the park. An excellent web site provides a complete tour of Rhyolite. http://www.rhyolitesite.com/index.html Rhyolite still has a few structures set against a mountainous background that make excellent painting subjects. The most complete structure is the train station, which is still inhabited, but several of the ruins make nice subjects as well. Another reason to visit Rhyolite is the desert art project, Gold Well Open Air Museum, http://www.goldwellmuseum.org/index.html started in 1984 by artist Albert Szukaski, a resident from Belgium. http://wintersteel.homestead.com/Rhyolite.html .Among the sagebrush and the bushes you will find a dozen interesting sculptures, including one depicting the last supper.
Train Station at Rhyolite
The last supper by Szukaski. The Madonna of the Desert can be seen in the background. Just west of Rhyolite is the beginning of the one way 26 mile Titus Canyon drive through the mountains back into the national park. This road can be very rough and washed out in places, but the spectacular views along the way make it a great adventure. You can only enter when the sky is completely free of clouds because of the flash flood danger. Many stops along this road, including one at the ghost town of Leadfield, would provide good painting scenes. Some of the best are near the end where the road passes through Titus Canyon, and these could be accessed from the West side with a short hike, since the road runs two ways at the entrance to the canyon. Otherwise this is pretty much an all day trip. In conclusion, from my own experience I suggest that Death Valley makes an excellent location for a four or five day artist's retreat.
Badwater Study done in 2007-5”x14”
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