Delicate Arch

1 February 2024

Video - Level ◆◆◆

In 2011 we visited Utah and Colorado on a climbing holiday. The wonderful red rock formations, towers, arches and canyons, all set in the desert, were some of the best scenery I had ever seen.

Long winter evenings right now mean that I've got time to revisit some old memories and paint scenes from photos or from my outdoor sketches. A few weeks ago I painted a little postcard of Delicate Arch - one of the incredible arches in Arches National Park. Someone who saw it online asked if I would do it again as a full tutorial. Of course! An excuse to get out a larger piece of paper and paint the scene properly. Happiness is :-)

In this lesson we paint the arch with lovely back lighting. It's all too easy to always look for a scene with sun coming from the front. But light from behind creates so much interesting drama - a little halo of light and big shadows to have fun with.

I hope you enjoy painting this as much as I did.

Happy painting!