The Shadows of Late Afternoon

Lamar Valley Light

The Big Hole River

These are two pastels of late afternoon light. Sounds kind of boring....no way!  The light is fast, freaky fast when you are trying to capture how it looks and feels in paint or pastel. 

The Big Hole River painting has no shadows due to narrow river valley to the west, so it is bright warm sun.....then sundown.

In Lamar Valley Light the shadow gradually crosses the valley and by the time it hits the east mountains the light is very warm and very cool with the transition of light to shadow a reddish hue. Very fun, very challenging, working at a feverish pace and very rewarding (well, most of the time!)

These paintings are both 4" x 6" and are painted with chalk pastel on 100% cotton rag paper, gently fixed with workable fixative.