Field Study: Black Mountain. 12 x 24.

This mountain is in Cathedral Valley, Utah, just east of Capitol Reef.
Lurt Knee showed it to us, and I was so taken with the gaudy red
spall and slide patterns on the black rock surfaces of its slopes that
we went back recently and drove out in Lurt's fouwheel wagon to paint
it. The day was bright and cool, about the 18th of May, with patches
of clouds running their shadows over the valley. I set up my easel
and Roz, Lurt and some friends drove off on a frolic of their own.
The wind was already frisky, and I moved down in the lee of a bank of
the arroyo. I soon decided it was too unpleasant and climbed the bank
to look for them, just to see them drive down another hill about a
mile away where they had returned to see if I could work all right. I
waved, but they didn't look back, so I went to work. As I got my paint
mixed and began covering the panel, the wind freshened and the sand
began to move. Holding the easel with one hand I painted grimly on,
getting the whole mountain down fast. By then, the paint on the
palette was gritty like wet concrete and the face of the panel began
turning a uniform shade of beige like a sand painting. I gave up, but
the wind didn't. It started to rain, then snow and plastered
everything with gritty mud. I mention all this just to show that
sometimes we pay through the nose. As it was I scraped my sand
painting flat in a few days and behold, a color guide remained, which
I brought home and repainted in the calm of my studio.

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