Pinnacles National Monument

This weekend I was camping with family and friends at Pinnacles NM. It has to be my favorite park that's near-ish to where I live (an easy 2 hour drive). The scenery is fantastic with heavily erroded rocky crags and cliff faces that are so dramatic; There is a variety of follaiage as you move from riverbeds to the dry scrub hills (if that's the right words).  The park has an added bonus of two caves which prove a great incentive for kids who don't really want to walk, the promise of a cave and a flashlight works every time!  I love it at the park and often think I should consider doing an artists residence there sometime.

The weekend was all together too busy to do any Plein Air painting, but I took a camera and took lots of pictures, so there will no doubt be some paintings to follow painted from memory and the photographic reference.

Here are three little paintings I've painted of the park in the past. Strangely enough the large work titled ' Pinnacles National Monument' was painted only 2 weeks ago, I must have been channeling the forthcoming trip though I didn't realize it.

Red Pinnacle Crags (above Bear Gluch Resevoir)

size: 8X10   Acrylic on board

Pinnacles Study 

size: 7.5X18.5      Oil on a rather thick off-cut of wood

Pinnacles National Monument

size: 13X25.5     Acrylic on board