Favorite Places to Paint

Lone Yucca
11 x 14 in/27.9 x 35.6 cm
Oil on Canvas Panel
Copyright Byrne Smith 2015

If you are a landscape painter, and even if you're not, you probably have one or several places you like to paint. Even if you're not, it could also be a favorite part of a city or interiors of buildings, too.

I like landscapes, and one of my favorite scenes to paint is  arid, low- and high-desert landscapes, either with or without mountains. Sometimes, a flat, sandy desert full of Russian Thistle, better known as tumbleweed in the US, can be just as striking.

One of my favorite places to paint is the US state of New Mexico. That's not to be confused with the nation of  Mexico, the northern part of which, by the way, has a landscape similar to that of New Mexico.

Basically, a high, arid plain in the east but also filled with mountains in the northern, southern, and western parts, it's a landscape painter's dream. You can paint mountains and canyons, deserts and cactus (and tumbleweed), snow scenes in winter, caverns in the southeastern corner, rock formations, white sands, as well as the meandering Rio Grande and miles of Pecan groves  and green chile farms near Mesilla.

It's got it all for painters. Even though I no longer reside there, I have lots of memories and lots of photos and plans for return trips.

I can only hope that  you have a favorite place to paint that inspires you as well.