I painted this back in the fall after my trip to Palm Springs, California and my hike to Dead Indian Canyon. The painting is named Sacred Datura after the flowering bush in the foreground of the painting. On my hike there was a really rotten smell at this point on the trail and my later research reveled that this poisonous and hallucinogenic plant gives off a smell of a dead animal decomposing. It is named Sacred Datura because of the ceremonial use of the hallucinogenic plant by native Americans. Some quick research online indicated that was used by certain Native American tribes in initiating young men, but even they recognized it is so dangerous that it would only be used once in a lifetime and only under the watchful eye of the tribe’s elders.
You’ll notice that the painting is more colorful than the photo, but it really expresses the feeling I had as I walked along this part of the trail. I loved the shadows on the canyon walls contrasted against the light on the dead grasses and I accentuated this feeling with the yellow and golds in the painting. I used shades of violet to indicate the shadows on the sandy trail in the left foreground and the shadows of the canyon ridges in the background of the painting. It was painted on a 16”x20” canvas with Windsor and Newton water mixable oil paints. I hope you like it.
This is my photograph that inspired the painting.
