Finally! the snow stopped falling. It's still quite cold, but at least I can find some sun to warm up in! I'm in the dense Pines campground, so I drive to a sunny meadow first thing in the morning, to watch the sun rise on the granite! It's about 7:30am here.
On Sunday, I settle in for a few hours in an amazing spot overlooking the Sentinel Bridge meadow, right onto both the Upper and Lower Yosemite Falls. I was here for about three hours, all the time cars would stop, people would pause and snap a picture or two, then move on, maybe spending five minutes at the most. What they missed, was the changing shadows on the ridges, the sight and the SOUND of the ice breaking away and falling into the cascades below. Many didn't even notice the perfect mirror reflection of the falls in the melting snow waters below (right in front of me). I've painted from this spot during the summer and it's all green grass and wildflowers. Here, the snow has just begun to melt.
Here's a closeup of the chunks of ice that break free to loudly crash below.
This is a tiny field sketch of the falls. I actually took an artist liberty and moved the lower falls a little closer center to the upper falls, all to fit into a linear painting that I'll do in my studio at home. (Where it's warm!) A field sketch is a tiny vision of a proposed painting, where you try to catch the shadows, colors, etc. I love having that personal, close relationship with every rock, as I individual paint it. It seems much more intimate than snapping a pic and moving on. (Maybe I'm weird.)
Later that day, I moved to the meadow across from Camp Curry and I try to capture the late afternoon light on North Dome.
Here is what I was actually looking at. Again, this is a small field study, only about 4x5 inches.
