Glorious Grand Canyon is Filling in Nicely

This summer, once school was over and I was able to complete a list of projects that had accumulated, I began working on my latest painting which focuses on the Grand Canyon. As I always do after completing the drawing, I began with the sky. This took several weeks to finish once I was able to start working on it. After finishing the sky I moved to painting the tree, which is usually one of the last elements I work on in my compositions. I chose to start there, because the idea of mixing all of the colors necessary for the background landscape was a bit overwhelming. I have to take into account light and shadow, changing layers of sediment, and atmospheric hazing, which encompasses so many color variations. I am starting to roughly lay in the various colors and shapes to see how they all work together before I take the time to clean them up completely. With all the detail and variety, this one is going to take me a quite a bit of time.

I have also been working to capture video of the progress while painting to use in making my video series. Glorious Grand Canyon will be the fifth image in my National Parks series. It will be available in four sizes with three liner color options. I am excited to see this finished, and I have several customers who have expressed their excitement for it as well! For updates check the blog on my website or follow my Keith Rust Illustration Facebook or Instagram accounts.