Light Beyond The Shadow

This valley scene is just below my studio in Colorado. In the late summer to early fall last year, I studied the dramatic light patterns created by cloud-filled skies that played over the valley floor and town beyond with their cast shadows. I waited for a day when the contrast was spot on--the sky was intensely blue in the distance with dense clouds hovered over almost the entire field and river. I spent that afternoon painting en plein air and tried to capture what I had been observing day in and day out; hoping my appreciation for this beautiful landscape I get to see everyday is mixed in with the paint and my brushstrokes.