I once took a trip to Chaco Canyon for the purpose of taking photos for future paintings. I took a little over 500 hundred pictures of this area. This is the first eighteen by twenty four inch oil pastel drawing I did of the canyon using about fifteen photos to jog my memory about all the elements I wanted to be seen in the creation of this drawing. Not only is there no one single photo of a location like this in the canyon, there is no single spot in the canyon like this. The only corporal place It exists is the original drawing. It is the "Essence of Chaco Canyon".

Moving on. I created the rock textures by laying different thicknesses of oil pastel on the 90 lb. cold press Arches paper. I chose the month of May so that I could see real cactus bloom in the desert and to catch the best time to see cloud patterns. Took some research for that, but it was worth it. I had no idea how to do the block work in the drawing until I had an idea about breaking a small cheap paring knife in half hoping I would get an uneven surface across the blade so I could get an uneven incising effect for the stone walls and kivas in the drawing. It worked. However, I was not satisfied with only working in oil pastels but had to wait until I developed enough skills to do oil paintings. After a few years of developing some skills, I now have thirteen oil paintings completed of this very special spot on earth. I expect there will be more. I hope the viewer enjoys this work.