From Glacier Point in Winter

This painting was inspired by my trip to Yosemite in 2018. Here, from the Glacier Point overlook, we see the high Sierra mountains in winter, with sunlight gleaming off Half Dome in the distance. Clouds float above, illuminated by the winter sun, the only warmth in this cold and wild landscape. This was an interesting painting since it ended up far more high-contrast and tonal than most of my works, but it's an accurate reflection of the overwhelming contrast between light and shadow on Half Dome most of the time.

Acrylic painting; 14" x 17"

Grandfather Mountain - autumn evening

In early October, I visited my brother and his family down in Charlotte, NC. While I was down there, we all took a day trip out to see Grandfather Mountain, a well-known site in western North Carolina. This impressive mountain has a double peak that is over a mile in elevation; while it was cloudy that day, it was still a great trip. We saw huge rocks, countless trees starting to turn fall colors, and hiked up a rocky trail to the swinging bridge near the top that is about a mile up. At the peak, even with the clouds, you can feel just how rugged and remote a place it is. We finished up at the visitor's center, which was large and very well maintained, complete with a cafeteria, museum, gift shop, and occasional live animal demos. This painting captures the rugged, split peak of this famous mountain in its autumn colors. If you're ever in the area of Grandfather Mountain, it is well-worth a visit.

Acrylic painting: 14" x 17"

Bryce Canyon - Stormy Day

This scene was another inspired by my trip out to the canyons of the West this year. When we visited Bryce Canyon, distant rain storms could be seen, casting a thin veil of rain over the far-away cliffs. This was another very challenging scene to paint. There is tremendous depth to the scene, and one can't simply hide the mid-ground behind trees since you're standing on the rim of a canyon, looking over the middle distance. Next, Bryce Canyon has distinctive colors and rock formations, but trying to paint the spires of countless hoodoos vanishing into the distance would be an exercise in futility; I was able suggest at the shapes of the rocks and trees, and I think that worked out pretty well. Finally, getting the foreground to look right wasn't easy until I settle on letting it mostly be in shadow so it stood out from the very bright rocks beyond. In all, this was not an easy painting, but I'm happy with the results - I think it captures the vast scale of the scene and looks like Bryce Canyon.

Acrylic Painting: 14" x 17"

Zion - Last Light

Zion National Park was the first one our tour group visited during my trip out to the American West in June of this year, and it is a place of great beauty. Colorful sandstone rocks set against an azure sky, all laced with green trees and plants ranging from cottonwoods to cactus. Above you, the cliffs tower, while all around you is life and beauty, nurtured by the Virgin River that flows through the park. Zion is also very accessible for a such an overwhelmingly pretty place, though this does lead to some crowding on nice days during the warmer seasons. Our hotel was right outside the park in Springdale, UT, and from my hotel room, I could go outside and watch the sun set on the canyon walls. Words and photos don't do it justice, so I've tried to capture those long sunsets in this painting.

Acrylic painting: 14" x 17"

Grand Canyon - South Rim sunset

I said I'd face the challenge of painting the Grand Canyon again, and so I did. This painting, interestingly, went far easier than the previous one of the canyon. I think a more traditional lighting angle and careful placement of the canyon walls made a huge difference and avoided the tangled maze of cliffs that I ran into last time. I'm very happy with how this painting turned out - I think it captures the tremendous size and depth of the Grand Canyon as well can be done in an average size landscape. The blazing light of sunset adds to the drama, and while I didn't actually get to see sunset at the Grand Canyon, I did see it at Zion, so I can appreciate how those cliffs glow with light; dappling light and shadow spots on the cliffs with a bit of horizontal patterning to the spots seemed to help, too. It's never easy painting something like this, but the results were worth it, IMHO.

Acrylic painting: 14" x 17" (framed)

Grand Canyon overlook pines

In early June of this year, I went on a fun, guided tour through gAdventures and National Geographic (their "Discover American Canyonlands" tour), and we got to see: Zion, Bryce Canyon, Antelope Canyon, and the Grand Canyon. Inevitably, this led me to try to paint what I saw, which is no easy task. In the west, the landscapes are beautiful, but unforgiving to paint.

This particularly painting started out with a beautiful sky, but quickly turned to disaster. I had made the cardinal error of trying to paint a scene with the light behind me, as was in the reference photo I took. Normally, such a lighting choice is just a bad idea, but when painting canyons, it turns the landscape into a maze of impossible to define shapes – a tangle of light and shadow that easily turns into gibberish when painted. Humbled by the created mess, I painted over nearly the entire canyon with the purple-grey shadow color, and went off to the internet to do some research. There, I found paintings from people with impossible levels of skill who could actually paint the Grand Canyon with the light over their shoulder and with every rock defined, but I needed some ideas more to my skill level. Eventually, I turned to a classic technique and swung the light around to the left and lower in the sky. This allowed me to define each mesa and butte with simple light and shadow while at the same time provided some more interesting colors to the scene.

In the end, I think this painting turned out reasonably well, but it’s hard to say for sure. The Grand Canyon is so large, complex, and challenging to paint – I came up with something decent after plenty of mistakes, but I’ll have to revisit this place in a future painting to see what I else I can do with it.

Acrylic painting: 14” x 17”

Reflecting on Spring

This painting was an interesting challenge since there's technically no sky in it. Instead, we see a grassy riverbank with some trees next to the water, with the sky reflected above. Pink flowers are mirrored in the water, with petals floating by on the slow current as spring passes.

Acrylic painting: 14" x 17"

Sunlit Sequoia Duo

High in the Sierra Nevadas, the sunlight gleams through ancient sequoias that stretch skywards, seemingly forever. This was a challenging painting for several reasons. The unusual perspective with the trees sweeping up overhead, the typical difficulties in painting a forest interior scene without it feeling confining and cluttered, and finally the tricky nature of depicting sequoias themselves. Their bark has an unusual mix of red in it without being overtly red, and their crowns, furrows, and burn scars are very distinctive to the species. While this was not an easy painting, I think the end result was worth the effort.

Acrylic painting: 14" x 17" (framed)

DC Cherries at Dawn

As the land warms and the days grow longer, the cherry trees begin to flower. A rite of spring in Maryland and DC each year, the cherry blossoms draw crowds to enjoy their stunning colors in defiance of winter. Here, we see the sunrise, back-lighting a trio of old cherry trees somewhere near the waters of Washington DC.

Acrylic painting: 14" x 17"

Swampy Winter Sunset

Today was snowy, so I decided to paint something appropriate to the weather. Somewhere far from the big cities, the sun sets in fiery colors beyond a soggy marshland, the reflected light the only real warmth on this cold day.

Acrylic painting: 14" x 17"

Aurora in Winter

I decided to go with something unusual for this painting - a scene in the frozen north, near the point where the trees fade away, of the aurora borealis in winter. It was an interesting challenge to paint since it's a nocturne with strangely colored, glowing ribbons across the sky, but I think it turned out reasonably well given the challenges.

Acrylic painting: 14" x 17"