Santa Clara

Santa Clara Pueblo

The Pueblo of Santa Clara, New Mexico, was established around 1550 in the Rio Grande Valley. Santa Clara Pueblo is well known for its highly polished black Pottery. 

You will find other traditional art forms of their Indian Pottery, like landscape paintings and cactus art. Few places in New Mexico can compare with the majestic beauty of the landscape of the homelands of the Santa Clara people. The splendor of the scenery is justly famous in the Southwest. The Santa Clara Pueblo has emerged with a stable tribal government and a prosperous economy.

Watercolor – Oil – Acrylics

I used Watercolor when creating this wall art of this southwest Santa Clara Pueblo. When I first started painting in 1990, I thought Watercolor would be easy to use. I mean, how hard could it be? Add a little water to the pigment and go from there. Only to learn that it is the most challenging medium to use. It is UNFORGIVING. With Watercolor, there’s a lot of forethought and planning. Because Watercolor is transparent, you paint from light to dark, the opposite of Oil and Acrylics. If you paint yellow over blue, you get green. So, you better know the color wheel, which was used here.

Making the Change

My canvas wall art of “Creekside Cathedral” was the first oil I painted after switching from Watercolor. Warner Bros. chose this wall art decor to license from me for their media series Snatchers. Now I paint exclusively with acrylics. Unfortunately, there’s some toxicity with Oil paints. Unlike acrylics, you clean your brushes with odorless turpentine and wear latex gloves to keep the chemicals off yourself. Also, oils take a long to dry, so if you’re in a hurry to go into what you just painted, you better know the proper technique to do that.

Vivid Mystical Sedona Landscape Paintings

 Discover my vivid, mystical landscape paintings here.