Arizona Colors!

One thing the Impressionists did for us was to show us that colors look different in other locations!  The colors looked different in France than other countries.  Here in the USA, the colors out West look different than the colors here in the Midwest.  Last week I spent time in Lake Havasu City Arizona painting a 60 foot long mural.  I flew to Las Vegas and drove 2 1/2 hours to Lake Havasu City.  The drive was a different kind of beautiful through the desert.  I marvel at the purple mountains and tried to photo them as I drove!  I wouldn't recommend that for the safety of driving and for the quality of the photos.  I really wanted to be able to capture the colors I saw with my naked eye.  As you can see, the photos do not do them justice.

I was studying the local colors of the desert in preparation for painting a mural.  It's amazing the colors you see when you really look!  Not only are the distant mountains purple but the greens are different too, more of a blue green than a lush grass green.

I began the mural with the lavender mountains on the horizon.  Cooler colors stay in the background while warmer colors seem to move closer.  Since I had a long narrow framework for the mural, I had little vertical distant to create depth.  Size and colors helped to achieve that effect.

 Study your surroundings and really look at the color.  Remember, color looks different at different times of the day.  What color are the trees on the horizon?  Compare that with the colors of the trees that are close to you.  Have you traveled and noticed colors were different than at home?