Today visited and drove thru Monument Valley in AZ/UT. After we visited the park, we camped just outside at a place called Rent A Tent.

From there I did two paintings. One later in the evening as the sun was going down and a second painting in the morning.

It was very late when I started this painting about 5:30 PM and windy. The light was quickly fading over a steep hill next to me. So I never finished the painting. While I was painting, I kept feeling a nudge on my elbow and looked down and there was this nice golden who had wandered over looking for attention without making a sound.

On a Southwest road trip this spring, we camped above the Rio Grande River one night. We arrived to late to paint the river and mountain behind it that night, but the next morning I was able to paint mostly the winding river the dark mountains in the distance.

On the East side of Sonora Pass/108 is the Leavitt Meadow trail leading to Secret Lake and Roosevelt Lake and other Wilderness Area destinations.

This view is from that trail showing the summer bright green and yellow aspens and the distant hills and places where the volcanic rock connects with the gray of the granite.

The eastern side of the Sierra Nevada Range is so different from the Western side. This view near Hwy 395 and Hwy 108 shows the dry, sage in the foreground and the rapid, steep eastern slope of the Sierras behind it. The western side is filled with views of 70 miles of slowly changing conifers and trees before it reaches the same snow capped peaks.

In early September, I was in Bridgeport, California for a painting class. I got up early and went to photograph the morning light on the Bridgeport Valley and Mono Basin. This is a view on the Twin Lakes Road looking south westerly.

A newer national park near Arches is Capitol Reef National Park. In this park they will still have some of the original farmsteads back dropped with the massive red steep cliffs.

Having an old barn in the painting brings life and humans into the harsh southwest landscape.

In mid summer a few years, I visited Tetons and Yellow Stone Park. Just a few years prior, large forest fires had come through the park and left big burn scars on the hills. You can see where fires were and new, lighter green vegetation and older darker green still forested areas.

Here is another painting of a view in the Carrizo Plain area during a super bloom. Yes.. those whole fields and hills are carpets of yellow and orange flowers or “gold fields” that are all blooming at the same time with primarily the same flower.

If you visit the Carrizo Plain at the right time (March /April), you will look at vistas of large yellow flowers in the near view and then look at distant mountain ranges in that are blooming as fields 20 miles or 30 miles aways that appear golden and yellow in the distance.

This view from a small hill looking down on Soda Lake toward the north east.