Rosanna Hardin Hall in Pompeii.

Late orange light floods the desert clear to distant blue mountains. I compose dark rainforests with waterfalls, crooked trees and ginger blossoms. I explore shapes of desert cottonwood trees under the big blue sky. I discover intimate forms in my own Victorian garden.

Several techniques are designed to enhance my work. I capture magical sunlight and long shadows by using a black mirror; grind my own pigments; create thumbnail sketches, and use size-sighting. The mirror helps me adjust nature to oil paint temperatures and values. It tones down glare and allows colors to appear warm and cool, light to dark. The same type of mirror called the Claude Glass was used by artists before the mid-19th century. I grind my own dry earth pigments such as Carmine red, Veronese green and yellow ochre into linseed oil. Then I mix them on the palette into muted tertiary colors to simulate colors I see in the black mirror. After choosing a site to paint, I make my thumbnail sketches using bold shapes in charcoal and white chalk on grey charcoal paper. After I select one sketch, I use it as a guide as I draw in the composition on a small colored linen canvas. As I fine-tune the drawing, I use a technique of measurement called size-sighting. By that process, I align my canvas along side nature so that I draw shapes in the distant landscape onto the canvas in the same proportions.

I am influenced by Renaissance artists of Italy. In addition, 19th century Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot influences me through his mastery of plein air painting based on neo-classic draftsmanship and composition. He roamed the Roman countryside looking for Roman ruins and nature's forms. Eighty years later, Paul Cezanne searched for nature's geometric forms in rocks, streams and Mont Sainte-Victoire in Aix-en-Provence, France. I paint in good company as I share their search for nature's Gardens of Paradise.