15
Willow Lake Backpacking Plein Air Trip
About a week ago my fast friendly framing assisstant, Frank and I rolled on down to Crestone, CO to do what has become a traditional yearly Willow Lake backpacking trip.
Its incredible rugged beauty makes for endless compositions anywhere you look.
Trouble is, it’s about 5 miles in to the lake and about 3500′ of elevation gain, none to easy especially when carrying an easel and all the painting supplies, and tent,sleeping bag, water, and food to live on for 3 days.
On the way to the lake you pass several waterfalls.
And when you get there, you’re greeted with open arms in the form of this:
We stay over night up there not only because we just hiked 5 miles in, but for this (photo taken from on top of the waterfall):
And this:
It was also a first time backpack trip to test out the ultimate easel that I personally designed, the PROLIFIC EASEL (click HERE to see more about the Prolific Easel).
Basically with the Easel development, necessity is the mother of all invention. I had endless problems with the legs of my Soltek and finally the parts that go around the spindle in the back of the easel wore out and broke. The last time I sent back the legs, the guy says, “dont use your easel in the sand.” Oh OK. There are three things that I like to paint most when I go out plein airing, Alpine scenes, Red Rock Country, and Ocean Scenes. It’s possible that I MIGHT run in to some sand in those types of places! So Soltek Easel out, new development of the Prolific Easel, in!
We enjoyed the trip immensely and I painted the following paintings while up there (for availability, click “Paintings” tab, Landscape, above):
15 Responses to “Willow Lake Backpacking Plein Air Trip”
Leave a Reply
Impressionistic Realism is the style in which I work. It is a versatile yet challenging style where the poetry of the subject is depicted, detail is implied, and I often employ the visual vocabulary and experience of the viewer to “finish” areas of the canvas in their own unique way. Through design my paintings are best...
Very interesting post. Thank you for sharing.
Superb post found it really good and truthful
I just like the valuable information you provide in your articles. I’ll bookmark your weblog and test again here frequently. I’m quite sure I will learn many new stuff right right here! Best of luck for the following!
Very interesting subject, thank you for posting.
Mate! This site is cool! How did you make it look this good !?