Avalanche Lily Glade Painting

A Wondrous Glade Avalanche Lily Glade surprised me while hiking in the vicinity of Crested Butte, CO, near Lost Lake. I pulled my travelling studio out of my pack and made a color sketch to capture the water reflection and the vibrant yellow avalanche lilies in full bloom. The seasonal pond in the foreground reflecting the Aspen grove beyond drew me into the glade like a hidden force. I hope to draw the viewer in, too. In time, and referring to photos I took in the glade, I worked the color sketch into a 4 by 6 inch miniature watercolor, circa summer 2002. I made a print for my step daughter Jeni, who took a fancy to it while living with us during her college years. Then in 2020 the image caught my fancy as I was looking for inspiration in a travel-free year. I notice that as shafts of light cut cross my studio the foreground flowers dim in the shadows and brighten from the sun. I use 300lb cold press watercolor paper (here, Fabiano) because it tolerates hard use: pigment scrubs and scratching to expose white details, adding multiple layers to darken, impasto shapes sculpted with gum arabic. I mainly use Daniel Smith (DS) paints. I poured the intense yellows (lemon & cadmium light) surrounding the water. Saving specs of yellow with masking fluid amid the greenery (consisting of some grass, but mainly lily stalks, with false hellebore outcroppings) did not work as well as hoped, so I dabbed yellow paint and gum arabic onto the flowers to bring them forward. I added perspective and contrast to the blooms by using dark sap green and sodalite to cut down the distant ones and grew the ones in the foreground with impasto. I scratched into the green to highlight the edges of clumps of flowers against the dark furrows of lily stalks. Duochrome and iridescent pigments brought out highlights. The foliage overlays were scrub-brushed through the crown of the forest to finish the aspen canopy. I worked on this throughout the pandemic summer, a pleasant and rewarding way to fill the time. That time lent itself to incorporating quite a bit of detail. Local art shows were cancelled near me in Montrose, CO, so by fall I was going further afield, to The Delta Fine Arts show in Hotchkiss and the Brush & Palette show in Grand Junction, where I first showed this work in October. We were booked to be in Northern Italy about the time I finished this piece and I yearn for travel (and the $4000 that United Airlines is “saving” for me). I hope the world will open up again to U.S. tourists, even high risk ones, by 2022. Until then I post miniatures from lost European places in my corner of Saatchi.com.

Painting:Watercolor on Paper

Original:One-of-a-kind Artwork

Size:22 W x 14 H x 0.1 D in

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