Day 4, morning location: Rio Chama

On Day 4 of our Santa Fe workshop, we headed out early for our most complex location, a striking scenic overlook of the Rio Chama. Being perched along the rim of a cliff, our group was a little nervous, but once they adjusted to the height, they could really appreciate the beauty of the scene for their paintings. With so much going on below and only a half day to capture the landscape, we had to majorly simplify the canyon into basic shapes and colors. The river not only served as a perfect focal point, but also created a soft flowing line to lead the viewer’s eye through our paintings. The rocky mountains provided a contrasting craggy texture and the green foliage added some life and color to the desert landscape.

Choosing to paint with palette knife today, I had a lot of fun playing with textures and mixing colors, which ended up adding to a feeling of spontaneity in the final painting, filled with energy and movement. While outside their comfort zone, my students’ also produced some of their best paintings from the trip!

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If you’d like more information on our upcoming

Plein-Air Painting & Photography Workshops, please e-mail me at Niki Gulley,

or visit my website at nikigulley.com/?page_id=13.

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To see more of my contemporary impressionistic landscape paintings, go to https://www.nikigulley.com/?page_id=33,

or to purchase this plein air study from Santa Fe, e-mail me at Niki Gulley.

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