67 mark on this immense sheet of paper. The drawing proceeded very slowly, but reasonably well. By the end of the day I had done the skyline and some distant formations, and a foreground tree, though, as a pro- portion of the paper surface, it is negligible. After holding the board for ages against fierce gusts of wind, I decided to pack up at 5:30. The paper flaps like an immense flag and is quite uncontrollable! SUNDAY 26TH MAY I’m up at 6:00 and to my site by 7:45. The day is still with some high cirrus. I draw until lunch and then until 3:30 when the wind got up, making it impossible to continue. Back at the trailer, I set John’s table up on end, clamped the drawing to it and did a few square inches of distant landscape. It’s such a puny percent- age in terms of the painting size; the two hours’ work only served to emphasise the scale of the task ahead. MONDAY 27TH MAY I am back in my old routine—two hours’ work, half an hour tea break, two hours’ work, one hour lunch in the hot sun. Borrowing a trick from the late Bill Brace, I stretch out in the sun for twenty minutes and nap at lunchtime. I got through the bad two hours, 2-4 in the blazing sun, where the Canyon is sleepy and dead looking and the light flat, by listening to my i-pod. I’m in an excellent spot—people occasionally come very close to view the Canyon, but seldom see me. With a jolt, I re-realise the enormous scale of the Canyon when a helicopter, a mere bug-sized dot, flies briefly below the Northern Rim. I can barely see it in the vastness. I shall put it in my painting and point it out to people, just as I have the fishing boat in my iceberg painting. TUESDAY 28TH MAY I eat lunch as the weather deteriorates, or gets better as far as an interesting sky is concerned. There’s stormy weather to the right over the N. Rim and some cirrus and blue sky to the left. Ideal! I draw it in and then start work, weighting the paper down with stones. The wind now is so fierce and the paper flaps around too much so I pack up and go back to John’s trailer. Finally, at 4:00 I start work. It’s a massive sky—7ft x 1ft—and after two hours, it is only partially painted and rather rudimentary, but I think it will work. It does show the desirability of doing the sky first, as the partially painted landscape is now slightly off-colour, so I will have to adjust it. WEDNESDAY 29TH MAY The sky took much longer than expected. Apart from it being so large, it is also very complicated with a storm on the right through to cirrus and blue sky on the left. FRIDAY 31ST MAY By the end of the day, I had done only one mesa, some verticals and some good drawing. It’s surprising how long it takes. The painting is my usual accretion of mannerism and detail, but is beginning to look good. By rights it shouldn’t as I am busking my way doggedly through it, but because the colour works so well and the drawing is so good, I get away with it…so far, anyway. A hummingbird came to check out my palette several times. A lizard comes to do press-ups on my rock as if doing obeisance to my painting. I’ve been working on it for seven days now, and it’s about half done. I feel a bit stir crazy and am having trouble settling to the thought of another ten days here. A lizard comes to do press-ups on my rock as if doing obeisance to my painting. —Friday 31st May 2013
