West End Muses

The latest installment to my Colorado Landscape Painting. As yet untitled. This image is one that I gathered while traveling to southern Colorado last summer to visit my Mom's final resting place in Alamosa in the San Luis Valley. I was fortunate to be able to spend a good weekend doing some traveling around the area taking pictures so that I could paint to my hearts content when I got back to Washington State.

This piece is from an area around La Veta (not quite that far, further east) east of the Spanish Peaks) more toward the area that has the caldera fields in almost extreme southeast Colorado and extreme northeast New Mexico (north and east of Angel Fire) The mountain in the background is a Caldera, meaning a large, basinlike depression resulting from the explosion or collapse of the center of a volcano. The whole area is covered in them. For one with an amateur interest in geology, this is a fun place to pick around in. A whole ton of little cider cones too. While on I-25, check out a perfect little specimen out just before Walsenburg.

Back to the latest installment of the progress of this piece. I've reintroduced shadows in the bushes at the fore, worked some shadows and highlights in all the rest of the trees and the road, a bit more on the house and toned down the gold in the field to the right. I've also started developing the wildflowers on the other side of the wooden fence. 

Getting close! Will be tackling the caldera and the sky again here directly and adding some scrubby bushes to the mid-line hills as well. 05-10-13

If you would like to see all the images in the progress of this painting you can visit my art page at Face Book, and while you are there I would love a "like" if you are so inclined. :-) Here is the link directly to the art folder: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.354138881330352.80958.197207013690207&type=3