Mountain River

This was a painting I did a few years back. It's of the Pyrneenes, where Wil and I went hiking on one of our trips to Spain. We were very high up and the atmosphere was thin, thus the strange, penetrating blue of the sky. When we walked into the shadows the air was icy cold, but if we stepped into the sun, like on this bridge over a small river, it only took minutes to get a sunburn.
Wil was having me do all of the driving by then and it took hours to get up the mountain to the park. When we arrived at the entrance there was an ominous sign: over the road and high in the trees, someone had strung bunches of dead animals. Going home our furry friends were still hanging there. It was harder going down the mountain then going up. The tight curves and hair pin turns were hypnotizing after awhile. When we finally came to the highway, my eyes could not adjust and I actually saw the road crawling away from me, an optical illusion after I had so tensely watched the road for so long.
The painting is about 5 or 6 feet tall. I hung it in a show for BWAC and it didn't sell. The day I went to pick it up I was told a young man had wandered in while the show was being taken down and bought it. I was happy but sort of sad too: it is the biggest successful landscape I have done. Imelda