Seeing the Light

How long will it take to produce this current painting from start to finish?  The answer to that keeps changing.   I put a lot more time into these than I used to.  As nature teaches me more in how to see, I try more and more to take those lessons and apply them with paint. The more I see, the more detail I want to portray.  I want to learn to paint faster, but for now I am content with learning to interpret the light I see

More time with a point-and-click camera in the Pacific Northwest's majestic wilderness.  Wake up in the middle of the night, hurry, must be at Reflection Lake before dawn. That hour before dawn in the summer comes very early indeed.  Being there before dawn means we are treated with the first rays of sunlight brushing the face of Mount Rainier.  An entire day wandering this vast national park yields so many lessons, so many opportunities to see natural light illuminating nature's beauty. The best times, of course, are when those rays of light are at a low angle... early morning and late in the evening.

I am not a photographer by any stretch, I am just a painter armed with a point-and-click determined to capture what I see, to preserve it, to help me remember the colors, the light, the details.

The following images are collected from a couple of trips up Rainier, my favorite mountain. A 3rd-degree ankle sprain had kept me away from the mountain for far too long, but I was fortunate in capturing many photos (despite the sprain!).  This year I will get back up there. Roll on Spring, I'm ready for another mountain trek.