A great day of painting en plein air in Colorado with my mom. The weather and setting were perfect, so the fact that the paintings turned out nice put our day in the bonus.
The location is just off highway 36 north of Lyons, a couple miles up the canyon towards Estes Park. The compositional options were wide-ranging and, in all honesty, a little overwhelming. Upstream or downstream? Canyon walls or creek… or both? Wide focus or narrow? Ultimately, I opted to highlight the creek while leveraging the canyon walls for perspective.
I haven’t done a lot of plein air this year, but it continues to be preferred over painting in the studio, in large part because it makes me paint smarter. The quick pace forces one to make instinctive decisions without overthinking things, which can fail sometimes, but on this day it proved effective.
This piece will need some refinement in the studio, but I’d say it’s 80% complete, which is pretty good for me in terms of getting it done outside in one session. My mom did a bang-up job on her piece, too, opting for the wider view of the canyon to include the water and the tops of the canyon walls. And, like I said, painting with my mom on a perfect afternoon was pretty awesome!
#austinart #artbern #berntx #crashboomzip #abplanalp #austinartists #pleinair #pleinairaustin #paa #pleinaircolorado #rockymountainnationalpark #lyonscolorado #coloradoartist
Art Bern 