Ponderosa and the Last of the Snow

I broke with my usual morning painting schedule to paint in the early evening because the weather was overcast in the morning, the remnants of impressive thunderstorms last night (our "fireworks"), and improved later in the day. This location is about 5000+ feet, just at the base of the steep incline of the peaks and the edge of the forest. The road ends just above this point and the only way in is to hike steep switchbacks, one of the more difficult trails into the Eagle Cap Wilderness. This particular area is interesting because there are some isolated mature Ponderosa pine and a few scraggly junipers in meadows. Only a few feet further and the forest is thick with a wide variety of trees. The snow melt is very rapid right now and the creeks (locally pronounced "cricks") and rivers are at or above flood stage. It won't be long now where there will only be snow at the highest north facing elevations. It will soon be time to hike up to a few of the alpine lakes. If I decide to sometime work this one up bigger, I'll subdue the snow in the background more. I also might paint this scene again on a day where there is more atmosphere; it was crystal clear today after the storms and I didn't want to fake atmosphere, I prefer to record what I see in a study.

Wildflowers & Pines

I ventured a little higher in elevation this morning and spotted this area with abundant wildflowers, red-violet lupine and a yellow daisy-type flower that I don't know the name of, in a pine meadow. The sunlight was very soft, filtered by heavy haze. A pair of whitetail posed in the middle of my view that I resisted the temptation to add since they would probably look too precious. An elk would have been more tempting. This is the first study I've done in a while that I am really looking forward to working up into a real painting. This is one I'd love to get lost in the abstract shapes and two dimensional surface plane of the image. I think that the time I spent with Maria Entis last week is having an influence. She has a new website, check out her work: www.mariaentis.com. Another influence from visiting Vancouver, was the art glass work of Robert Held. His studio produces a wide variety of styles, all of which are gorgeous, but here I was thinking about some of his wildflower series that seem to shimmer and glow and are very Klimt-like: www.robertheld.com.