Evening Above the Horse Heaven Hills

Evening Above the Horse Heaven Hills. ©2010 Lisa McShane. 20" x 30". Oil on Linen.
In December I spent several days at museums in Washington DC studying paintings. I was most interested in Inness, Twachtman and Whistler. But mostly George Inness. Since my return - well there were the holidays & visitors & a bit of flu & a little project of insulating a 117-year old hosue - but I've slowed down my painting to experiment with some of the techniques I observed with Inness and others.

This one has more layers - many, many more - in the opaque paint - mostly in the sky. I placed the foreground in shadow and put the light in the middle - a compositional approach Inness used in many of my favorite paintings.

The foreground is a mix of transparent glazes and scumbles - back and forth and back and forth between the two layers - but with more visible texture than I had been using in the transparent passages.

I used the sky as a way to focus on the light falling on the wheat fields in the distance and to call attention to the disappearing horizon - that's the Columbia River. Where the viewer stands is a high point on the Horse Heaven Hills, with a long, dramatic slope to the Columbia gorge in the far distance. This is an arid area and the winter wheat in the mid-ground gives way to shrub-steppe and now, increasingly, vineyards in the distance. This south-facing slope of the Horse Heaven Hills is one of the best red wine growing areas in the US and is a place where you can see geology clearly at work.

Here is a painting - also looking south - but of the hills that you're standing atop: Horse Heaven Fog.

Comments

Katherine van Schoonhoven said…
This is beautiful! I love the shapes of the clouds and the complex colors in the land forms. It smells like someplace east of The Dalles.
January 22, 2011 at 10:17 PM
Lisa McShane said…
Thanks Katherine!

Yes, it's east of the The Dalles - just to the NE. It's a stark landscape but I love it.
January 23, 2011 at 12:29 PM
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