Aspen Gold

Watercolor Painting by Dennis Pendleton. Fall is in the air and the Rocky Mountains are sprinkled with golden aspen trees. This is my favorite time of year for plein air painting because I love the weather and the autumn colors. This painting was done in Steamboat Springs, Colorado on the trail through the forest that leads to the hot springs. This enchanting location includes a stream with a beaver dam and settling on where to paint was difficult. Trying to include too much is a real pitfall for plein air painters so I used my viewer and set up among the trees. When I am painting on location I typically work small and this painting is 7 x 10 inches.

First, I chose one aspen tree to be the main character and placed it left of center in the foreground where it touched the bottom and top borders. Next, I surrounded it with other aspens and the colorful ground cover of ferns and mountain shrubbery. At first glance, aspen trees appear white but, on closer inspection, you find light pastel shades of gray, blue, violet and even green. Here I used different grays mixed with cerulean blue plus brilliant orange, yellow ochre plus cerulean blue plus cobalt violet, and burnt sienna mixed with French ultramarine blue. I also added cobalt violet plus yellow ochre and allowed all these colors to mix right on the paper. On the tops of the trees you can see I used stronger values of these same colors to indicate cast shadows from the leaves and branches. Olive green was used for a few of the leaves that had yet to turn gold. Black for the tree markings was mixed with burnt sienna and French ultramarine blue with very little water.

Showing how the distant aspen trunks settled into the ground cover was very important and I used a rigger brush for thin branches of dark brown along with Indian red plus yellow ochre and mineral violet in middle to dark values. Finally, this area includes some spattering with lemon yellow. To create thickness and depth in the gold coloring I started with lemon yellow and cadmium yellow and then layered transparent yellow while allowing the first washes to show through. Finally spattering with olive green, burnt sienna and transparent yellow added the finishing touches. Be sure and get out with your paints and capture the gorgeous colors of Autumn before they are gone.

This painting is framed with museum glass and a handsome subtle gold 3 inch frame and is for sale through my studio for $500. If you are interested, send an email to: pendletonstudio@gmail.com. Happy Painting! Dennis Pendleton