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Tag: Argentina

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It’s wicked hard to paint a rainbow

Downpour, 6X8, oil on archival canvasboard, $348 includes shipping and handling in continental US

Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but it’s raining. I love these spring rains; it’s chilly but not cold, and the plants begin their rebirth. But as Ken DeWaard says, who needs another grey painting?

Actually, I disagree. Sea fog can be very beautiful, as I hope I’ve demonstrated below. And if you don’t believe me, ask the great Romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich.

Sea Fog, 9X12, oil on archival canvasboard, $696 unframed.

Painting rainbows is tough. They’re luminous, shimmering, and there’s really no shift in value. Double rainbows are even harder; they have a slightly darker passage between the color bands, which looks ridiculous in paint. Not that there’s anything wrong with being ridiculous.

Frederic Church pulled off a great rainbow in Rainy Season in the Tropics, but that is another of his enormous studio blockbusters. Mine was painted fast at the end of a very wearing lockdown in El Chaltén, Argentine Patagonia. It’s a completely different kind of painting. (And, yes, I can paint detail when I want to.)

Toy Reindeer with double rainbow, oil on archival canvasboard, 6X8, $435 framed, includes shipping in continental US.

That day started with a halfhearted rain and moved to a downpour, much as yesterday and the day before (and so many other days this spring) have done here in Maine. It’s impossible to paint outdoors in these conditions, even in oil. The mist beads up on your palette and emulsifies with your paint. So, on that day, I painted through a window. The angle wasn’t great, and I only caught a small smidgeon of sky, which is why it has that deep central vee. However, the things that matter are all there: the southern beeches, the pinnacle rock formations, and, of course, the rainbow.

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If all your friends jumped off a cliff, would you, too?

The Whole Enchilada, 12X16, oil on archival canvas, $1159 unframed.

Yesterday marked four years since we got home from our ill-starred trip to Patagonia, which just happened to coincide with the start of COVID. I’ve written about it starting here, and I don’t need to retell that awful and awesome adventure. However, struggling through spring snow yesterday reminded me of how anxious we were to leave El Chaltén as winter closed in on the southern Andes.

The Whole Enchilada was my second to last painting before we finally left the glaciers. My final one will remain forever unfinished because I was too ill with giardiasis to paint. Ironically, it’s taken four years to entirely clear that from my system, too. Last month, my PCP thought it was just possible that my gut symptoms were caused by my old parasite friend. Thankfully, it seems she was right. That’s one bad memory of Argentina that I can finally put to sleep.

This painting was done in the stupidest possible manner. After two weeks of looking at glaciers from river valleys, Jane Chapin, Kellee Mayfield and I climbed a mountain to get a different view. Being sensible outdoorswomen, we hared straight up the steep hillside. None of us had rappelling gear and we were suddenly in a maze of granite ridges.

Just a short break among the endless switchbacks. We’re there somewhere.

“If all your friends jumped off a cliff, would you, too?” is a famous parental question. Well, duh. Yes, obviously. Faced with a choice of being left behind or staying with your buddies, you soldier on. The good news is that none of us fell, even descending into a wicked headwind. The view from up above was sublime. We hunched down behind boulders as the wind increased in force. All of us painted well, although there can be no detail when your easel is bucketing in a fierce wind. It’s also hard to carry a wet canvas down a cliff when you’re worried about falling.

Argentina is a large and beautiful country, but the flip side is that I saw very little of it on our ill-fated trip. Will I go back? Certainly, especially if I can talk Jane into it. But not tomorrow, for sure. This winter has lasted long enough.

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