It seems like I pick up rocks everywhere I go. Now I do it with an eye for color. So far, I’ve only painted with the Ozark pigments. But, I collect pigment rocks everywhere I go. So eventually, I want to paint scenes from those locations with the pigments native to that place.
Even the Ozark pigments vary from place to place, though. The rocks from from War Eagle Creek, a little west and north of us, are different sorts of rocks. Most of them are too hard and not rich enough in pigment to be worth smashing. But I did find some I could use. I just haven’t gotten around to grinding them, yet. When I do, I’ll paint a scene of the area where I gathered the rocks.
Our mountain geology here changes even from hill to hill. On our own hills, in our own valley, the makeup is mostly sandstone and shale. This is consistently the case in the creeks and valleys here that feed into the King’s River right around here. A little farther downstream on King’s river is where I can find nice yellow limonite. And a little farther down is where I can find a wonderful red in tiny pieces. But still farther downriver (same river) near Berryville, AR, the rocks are like the ones at War Eagle Creek – too hard. They’re mostly flint and other types of rocks there. I’m not likely to get anything painted with Ozark pigments from that end of the river.
The Rocks are Different
Even right here close to home, if I go a little bit eastward, over the mountain and down into a different valley, the geology changes. This difference is reflected in the rocks, especially. There, the makeup is mostly limestone, chert, and flint, with some shale. If I keep going toward the Buffalo river, I’ll find sandstone again, suitable for making paints.
But it’s illegal to collect stones from the banks of the national river, so I just use the ones from home if I want to paint a scene from that area. While the rocks in the river there are larger and more rounded than ours, the colors are the same. The image at the top of this post is at the low-water bridge in Ponca, on the Buffalo River. It’s still painted with the Ozark pigments, just not the ones right at that location. I started that one plein air and finished it at home, and I used the water from the river to wet my paints.
This scene WON’T be painted with the Ozark pigments
This one is a scene from an entirely different mountain range – the Rockies of Colorado. While we were there, I did gather some rocks that I will eventually smash to make paints, and I’ll paint this scene with the colors of that land. Perhaps it’s going to be a future oil painting later this year.
A Special Promotion
I have some jpgs of my Down at the Creek collection that are free to download and use in any non-commercial way, if you want them. I’m running a promotion and practicing using the sales funnel. The downloads are free, but the other offers in the funnel are big discounts on prints or framed prints, compared to normal prices in my online shop. 
The special won’t last forever, but long enough for me to learn the ropes of Facebook advertising and building sales funnels. Later, I’ll come up with a different sort of offer to make. Here’s the link to it if you’d like to see what I’m talking about.
The only one of these paintings still available in original is the Rock Flutist. It was painted with the the Ozark pigments, and is a painting of a rock upon a rock. Not quite realism, but what I’m calling Whimsical Nature Art, lol.
Contact Mad Rox: (479) 409-3429 or madison@madisonwoods and let me know which hat I need to put on 🙂 Madison for art, Roxann for real estate, lol. Or call me Mad Rox and have them both covered!
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Author/Artist Info
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Roxann Riedel is a salesperson for Montgomery Whiteley Realty, artist, owner of the only ginseng nursery in Arkansas, and the author of books and this website. Madison Woods is the pen-name she uses for her creative works. She’s a self-taught artist who moved to the Ozarks from south Louisiana in 2005. Her paintings of the Ozark-inspired scenes feature lightfast pigments from Madison county, Arkansas. Her inspiration is nature – the beauty, and the inherent cycle of life and death, destruction and regeneration. Wild Ozark is also the only licensed ginseng nursery in Arkansas. Here’s the link for more information on the nursery
There’s always a discount for paintings on the easel 😉
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