Saturday, May 15, 2010

Ready for spring



I don't know that spring will ever get here! We live at an elevation of 9,000' feet, high up in the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. We love snow. We play in it all winter, but the ski areas closed a month ago, and look at what it is still doing! This has been the view out my studio window for the last few mornings. It is not a black and white photo. It is fresh snow. But tomorrow it is supposed to be in the 50s and on Monday in the 60's! We will all have our shorts and sandals on. I have to go to Denver to buy my ski pass for next season, and perhaps I will stop and pick up some flowers. I will still need to cover anything less hardy than pansies for at least two more weeks, and maybe four, but I am ready for summer!
Now can you see why I paint lots of summer wildflowers and fall foliage?

We can get snow here at almost any time, and I remember watching fireworks in a snowstorm one July 4th. Our summers are short, but that is why the wildflowers are so fabulous in the Rocky Mountains; they are all blooming at once! I hike a lot in the summer, and my camera goes with me. I spend the summer and fall photographing it all so that I can paint it in the winter, when it is all white outside again.

7 comments:

  1. Hi Joanne,
    Wishing you some summer sunshine soon. Lovely painting. Sounds like my kind of place to live; more cold, less flying insects. I live in Maine; lots of flying insects. Still love it here though, but I do look forward to the winter.

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  2. You're wildflower painting is so inviting. I wish you spring soon! It is no time for snow... During the fourth of July fireworks? I don't know if that's just too silly or really cool!

    Here in Maine we have a great dose of snow, but when it stops, it usually stops. Our winter was mild and short this year. I guess you're getting what we didn't. Sorry, didn't mean for anyone else to be dumped with it...

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  3. Both of you from Maine! I have never been there, but have heard it is wonderful. We get our share of mosquitos too, but not for too long. Other than that, we have few bugs, snakes and that type of thing. We do get bears and other larger animals, but they are not really an issue. They like me a lot less than I like them, unless I happen to leave a meal out for them in a trash can or bird feeder. Then they like me a lot. Foxes are frequent visitors and we get moose in June. We usually welcome snow, but not between May and September!

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  4. Just an amazing part of the country to live in! Lovely painting of wilflowers!

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  5. I love it too! I wouldn't live anywhere else, except maybe New Zealand (where I was born) for part of the year.

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  6. Hi Joanne!.... "I" love the softness of this piece... combined successfully with "colour surprises"... that the eye cannot avoid visiting.

    Your diagonally driven design really works... and the eye travels about joyously exploring... but finally arrives back at that lovely spruce!

    Well done!

    Good painting!
    Warm regards,
    Bruce

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  7. Hi Bruce, we finally have spring here (this week anyway). Thanks for your nice comments about the painting. I hope to spend a good bit of today at the easel again. I haven't got much time in this week.

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