Desert sketches...

Mulling over, looking through and eventually just making a start with desert painting series by going back to the photos and sketches I made on site at the Coloured Sands in the Makhtesh HaGadol, south of Dimona.
The site itself is quite extensive and is made up of loosely sedimented layers of clay, sands and above all strongly coloured iron ore layers - ranging in colour from pale grey to glowing gold ochre to dark purple. - I've created a Google Map to link to the site: click here to see a satellite image of the area
I captured one of the main views on site, as mentioned in this earlier entry here - but before I feel I can go back to do that as a painting, I need to 'get to know' the location again. Just as well that we took lots of photos in addition to the sketches. Many of these are detailed shots of different small rocks, sand dunes and larger vistas.

Here are the first two pastel studies of one of the rock formations for detail and colour:



Coloured Sands Study 1, pastel on paper, 40x30cm



Coloured Sands Study 2, pastel on paper, 30x40cm

Now that I've started on these, I feel that I'm getting a sense of colour, texture and place to continue with these ones - so, keep watching