Notes on View of the La Garitas from Bachelor

by Stephen Quiller

This painting was inspired from a view of the La Garita Mountains off a high country road close to where I live. The band of violet-blue mountains punctuated by the patterns of aspen and spruce in mid-July as well as the soft yellow and green of the early morning sky served as my subject. I did a contour drawing with a bold line gel pen and took a few notes concerning this scene and went back to my studio to begin the painting.

I began with warm yellow-orange, orange, and red-violet washes of transparent acrylic. When dry, I over-painted with translucent and opaque applications of casein. The velvety-matte visual quality of the casein interacts with the luminous transparent undertones of the acrylic to achieve the final look of the painting. SQ