White Sands. Painting #73. A Southwest Landscape Inspired by White Sands National Park

White Sands is painting #73. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t exactly buzzing with excitement when I first sat down to write about this painting. While it isn’t my favorite original, it did come from a unique place.

The Inspiration

This piece was inspired by my trip to White Sands National Park in New Mexico. What stuck with me most wasn’t just the dunes, it was the texture of the mountains surrounding the area and the contrast with the snowy white sand. They’re nothing like the alpine peaks I learned to paint with Bob Ross. Southwestern mountains have this dry, rugged, almost skeletal look to them, and I really wanted to capture that sense of distance and texture. I also wanted to include the unique desert vegetation that breaks up all that white sand.

Notes From the Easel

By the time I finally painted this scene, I’d been home for nearly two months. I still wanted to honor the memory of the place, so I painted this one completely from scratch — no Bob Ross video, no reference tutorial, just me trying to recreate what I remembered.

Here’s a tip if you ever paint sand (or anything very light):

Treat it like snow.

Put a darker layer down first, then build the light on top. The darker base becomes your shadow color. I didn’t do that here, and because the sand was so light, I had to keep darkening it just to get depth. All those extra layers made the foliage harder to paint without turning everything into mud. Lesson learned.

Final Thoughts

Even so, there are parts I really like, especially the distant mountains and the colors in that back range. If I ever revisit this one, I’d push the mountains even farther back and give the sand more shadow color from the start.

This painting may not be my personal favorite, but it still captures the essence of what I wanted: the distance, the texture, and the strange beauty of a place where the world looks bleached and endless. And who knows? You might see something in it that I don’t. Everyone experiences art differently.

If you ever get the chance, go see White Sands, New Mexico in person. It’s surreal in the best way.

If you’d like to explore more pieces like this, you can browse the gallery, read more behind‑the‑scenes blog posts, or follow along on social media where I share works‑in‑progress and new releases. Hope to see you there!

Happy Painting