Rowdy Redwall Ravens
30 x 30 in.
Oil
The 10th annual Grand Canyon Celebration of Art will feature 25 artists painting plein air at the Grand Canyon September 8-15, 2018, with an exhibit and sale of their work opening at Kolb Studio on the South Rim on September 16. The exhibit and sale will be open daily through January 21, 2019.
Elizabeth Black was awarded the PleinAir Magazine’s Best of Show at the 2017 Celebration of Art. The artist from Boulder, Colorado, first painted in the Grand Canyon in 1975 while working as a river guide on the Colorado River. Although the boat flipped and soaked all her watercolor sketches, Black says about half of them were immensely improved! That incident gave her a tiny glimpse of the exciting potential ahead. She has continued to explore the West with her husband, photographer Christopher Brown, by boat and on foot, frequently painting on-site. 2018 will be her 9th time participating in the GCA CoA.
Each of the participating CoA artists creates a studio painting for the exhibit, which will hang in the exhibit along with the plein air work they paint during the event.
For her studio painting for this year, Rowdy Redwall Ravens, Black returned to the river to capture in her work the ravens that are frequent visitors to campsites there. She explains:
“Redwall Cavern, like other popular stops on a river trip, supports a resident raven family who both harass and entertain river-runners. Ravens supplement their diet of insects, rodents and lizards with human food and bars of soap (their favorite). They unzip backpack pockets to steal goodies, and carry entire sandwiches away in their beaks. Highly intelligent and loyal, they hold grudges against people who have hurt them, use tools to obtain food, and remember locations of their many food caches for months. Watch for teenaged raven gangs playing on thermals along the canyon rim, challenging each other with amazing acrobatic feats.”
For more information and a schedule of events please visit:
https://www.grandcanyon.org/arts-and-culture/9th-annual-grand-canyon-celebration-art or contact Kathy Duley [email protected] 480.277.0458.
