Hardwork in AZ

Art workshops are always fulfilling and always challenging. Last week I spent 4 days in Mesa, AZ in a workshop put on by Mitch Baird. This will have been my 3rd workshop with him (you keep coming back when you know its a good experience) and as usual his way of teaching is straight forward and easy to understand. My challenge was to get past the "orange/pink" of those background hills, which he insisted were purple. Atmosphere always leaves the yellows behind first, then the reds second which finally leave you with blue. Not to say that any of  those colors are pure color, ... Oh so many nuances to plein air painting! Mostly, it's the values that make the scene, values get lighter as the landscape recedes. Then it's the temperature of the color you lay down, distance is cooler and grayer. Foreground has the most saturation. So, these 3 paintings are on 8x10 panels, and maybe developed into larger studio works, or maybe not. I haven't decided quite yet... I rather think I just like them the way they are and leave it at that.