Plein Air Studies from the Columbia Gorge

(left) "Hood Awakes"
Original framed oil, 8"x8"
©2011 Diana Moses Botkin

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Saturday morning I got up and painted a couple more studies of beautiful Mt. Hood in the glowing morning light. The gift of such a sight is worth missing sleep and morning coffee, and freezing my hands too.

The night before, there had been storms and I was awakened several times by the lightning flashes. Later I found out that those storms started fires on Mt. Hood and you can see haze from low-lying smoke at the base of the mountain even in these quick studies. At the time I painted them, I simply thought it was morning fog.

(left) "Morning Light on Mt. Hood"
Original unframed oil, 4"x6"
©2011 Diana Moses Botkin

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Our meeting place for Saturday's paintout was Mosier Plateau, near Hood River. This is a very windy spot overlooking the Columbia River. Although I worked several hours on a study, I wound up scraping it all off, as I was not happy with the painting. The longer I worked on it, the worse it got. Some painting days are like that, especially when working en plein air. I was very tired from fighting the wind and gave up at the location.After some food and rest, I connected with Becky Joy to paint again and we discussed possible locations for the evening. We settled on trying to find a good view of Mt. Adams and drove up to overlook areas to find a good spot.

A friendly orchard grower let us set up near his fruit trees to study the distant view of Adams. Smoke from Hood and other forest fires was parked over Mt. Adams and made for interesting color at sunset.
"Smoke Above Adams" Original oil, 4"x6" ©2011 Diana Moses Botkin
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