a painting vacation

You may have noticed I didn't post anything this past Sunday, the reason being I was leaving on my vacation. I have been looking forward to this for a long time. The plan is to drive around looking for good things to paint. I left Sunday stopping at Kenosa pass to paint this.

Next stop was just east of Buena Vista. The mountain is a 14er. But, I'm not sure which one.

I spent the night just south of Creed. I found this spot in the dark and woke up to this sight. I painted this in the soft early morning light. I think it shows.

Next stop Monday was this spot on the road out of Lake City headed up Cinnamon  Pass. The clouds rolled in and it rained on and off the rest of the day.

On the other side of Cinnamon Pass is this place called Animas Forks. There are all of these beautiful old mining ruins there. I painted the next three paintings there.

Animas Forks is a popular place for four wheel drive atvs and motorcycles. I had all sorts of people stop to see what I was doing. One guy asked for my email so he can contact me when he gets home to Missouri and buy this painting. We'll see. It did turn out quite well.

I couldn't resist this cool old house. I painted it way straighter than it was standing. It looked like a mistake painting the back corner as out of plumb as it is in real life.

This is my third painting on Tuesday. This was on the way up California pass west and up from Animas Forks. I believe the high point on the left is California mountain standing just above 1300 ft. After I finished the painting I drove the rest of the way up California Pass. You can see some of the road in the painting. 

Here are a couple of photos from California Pass

This morning I headed south out of Silverton and stopped on the side of the road to paint this picture of the Grenadier range. It was raining on and off so I set up some shelter with a tarp to keep out of the rain. See next photo. I am growing more and more confident every day. I know I have much room for improvement, but it feels great to have my paintings turn out as well as they are.