Disappearing Beauty - Vatnajokull Glacier Lake, Iceland,
Watercolor on Arches #140 Cold Press Paper, 5"h x 7"w, 2013 #45
Watercolor on Arches #140 Cold Press Paper, 5"h x 7"w, 2013 #45
Continuing my "Disappearing Beauty" series for the Climate Crisis Show in the Main Gallery -- it opens this Wednesday! The artists' reception is this Saturday, June 1st from 6 to 8 pm. If you are in the Redwood City area, stop by 1018 Main Street (right beside Alana's Cafe) and say Hi!
This one is based on my travel a couple of years ago to Iceland -- a country with 25% of land covered by glaciers of various sizes, all in the process of disappearing if the global climate keeps its warming trend. Vatnajokull is in the southeast side of Iceland and its tongue is directly melting into a large lake, with icebergs broken off the glacier tongue floating on the lake surface, it's quite a surreal scene of intense purples and turquoises -- colors that are even considered too bright-hued when used on canvas actually appearing in nature. With the glacier melting faster than ever, in less than a couple of decades lakes like this may totally cease to exist...
Disappearing Beauty - Palisade Glacier Lake, Sierra Crest, Fall,
Watercolor on Arches #140 Cold Press Paper, 4"h x 9"w, 2013 #46
Watercolor on Arches #140 Cold Press Paper, 4"h x 9"w, 2013 #46
Bid at My DPW Auction (Starting Bid $35)
I've enjoyed doing the long-format little piece of palisade glacier lake so much that I decide to make it a triptych. The last one is a winter view and this one is approximately fall, with the high peaks surrounding the lake starting to be covered by snow, but the lower foothills still have some brown colors of brushes and prairie grass. The lake is not yet frozen, reflecting the clear autumn sky color of the high country... With a warmer planet and much less winter snow fall, such high country glacier lakes may totally disappear due to the lack of replenish water source from melting snow in the next couple of decades, just like the lakes that used to cover the vast region of death valley a hundred thousand years ago...
I've used a very limited palette of three colors to do this piece and thoroughly enjoyed it -- with such limitations imposed, I actually feel that I can spend more time concentrating on solving the relative color temperature and value problem without being distracted by the decisions of whether it is the right hue that I am mixing for a particular object in the landscape. Also, it is much easier to abstract landscape into various shapes instead of considering it as a compilation of different objects when the colors are not an accurate imitation of nature.
Disappearing Beauty - Sunset over Rockies, June,
Watercolor on Arches #140 Cold Press Paper, 5"h x 7"w, 2013 #47
Watercolor on Arches #140 Cold Press Paper, 5"h x 7"w, 2013 #47
The next one, "Disappearing Beauty -- Sunset over Rockies, June" is based on my trip up in Colorado a couple of years ago. It was June but snow is still everywhere once you get into the mountains. And as the sun sets against western sky, all the snow covered peaks in the high Rockies just turned into this flaming red, which gradually faded into a deep purplish blue near the base of the peaks. It was a glorious show every evening, and never exactly the same. With an average six degrees' average temperature increase as predicted in the next few decades, there would hardly be any snow left on these peaks in the month of June, when the vegetation on the plateau is lush, and such glorious show in nature's beauty would be missed by the future generations...
More to come -- stay tuned!
You can now buy high quality Giclee prints of many of my sold paintings, both on paper and canvas, as well as some note cards with my paintings here:
