Towards Telluride

An 8X8 pastel from a ride into the Lizardhead Wilderness last summer. Looking east from the Kilpacker trail to the Yellow Mountains:

SOLD

Satisfaction

This was inspired by a recent ride into the high country in an area the elk really like. It brought to mind memories of a camping trip up there where we observed several large bull elk napping on a ridge where they could keep an eye on things. Through binoculars we could see they all had huge racks, and were at the end of the growth cycle. In a few weeks they would shed their velvet and not be buddies anymore. While perusing the website PaintMyPhoto I found a photo of an elk that embodied the memories I had. I call it "Satisfaction" because he looks very pleased with himself. This is a 6x6 soft pastel on Pastelmat, and is framed in a Randy Higbee Gallery frame (love these frames!) using acid free materials.

June in the High Country

After the success of the last three paintings, all of which sold, I felt I should return to a subject more difficult. After all, this month was for me to try to learn as much as possible. I have a photo from a favorite trail of mine, and many others, that was taken on a friends last trail ride. He had cancer and it was amazing he could still ride at this point but he did, and he thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated all of it. So, I am sure, that influenced my choice. Here is the reference photo:

I had a feeling this would be hard, and that I wouldn't like the results, but I wanted to try anyway. The photo looks simple, it shouldn't be that hard, right? I must be learning, though, because I knew it would be difficult, and I was right. Here is how it looked the first time it was 'finished':

 

There are things I like about it. I think the snow patches came out better than expected, and I like the shadows on the snow patches. I don't like my foreground, and to me the entire painting reads as flat, with no feeling of dimension or space. Can I stick my face in it? I think not. I posted the photo on WetCanvas and got some great feedback, so I adjusted a few things:

I softened and lightened the tops of the mountains. I greyed down the bluff with some purple. The foreground grass was scraped off and redone using orange underneath to make the green pop. Much better, right? I know it's not perfect, but I felt  I learned a lot so on to the next one.