Gold in the Mountains

Gold in the Mountains.

7x5in  oil on canvas board  90.

The most popular viewing time for aspens is in the fall. My hubby, Jim, and I were visiting our friends the Hons, in Frisco, near Lake Dillon, and the day was glorious with a deep blue sky making a breathtaking vibration next to the golden aspens. I was in heaven and determined to paint them the next day. Wrong! Our host, Bud, woke us up telling us we had slept through the fall. Sure enough a blanket of snow covered everything in sight and it continued all day, creating an incredible, muted beauty. Amazing it could change that fast.
Lesson learned. In the mountains...paint it when you see it!


Artist Note:


This was a demo painted with the knife, from my imagination.
I lived in Denver, Colorado, for 8 years and was able to paint aspens a lot, so I feel comfortable painting them from memory.
I deliberately made one aspen angled to provide some movement among the strong verticals and linked the main area of leaves at different angle. I was careful to mass the leaves and not to do the polka dot effect and remembered to place shadows under them. Courtesy of tips from Kim English the fabulous artist I studied anatomy under in the late 80's.