Blue Lakes - Colored Pencil Drawing

"Blue Lakes" Colored Pencil

On a cold, clear morning near Breckenridge, icy Blue Lakes is a stark land of rock, snow and ice. It's early summer but the orange peaks still dwell in winter's blue shadow. The mountain melt is a gradual process described with gradients of indigo and gold.

After a season of somber gray, passages of fluid color are emerging from beneath the thick, white impasto. Long slides of ochre-stained snow descend to the water's edge and are swallowed by the merciless, dark reservoir.

Due to the warmer dawn, spectacular bergs of emerald ice are beginning to break apart. The foreground is filled with a confusing jumble of fractured frozen-water where shards of sparkling silver frost succumb to the menacing pond.

The array of awesome alps is a monument to an earlier epoch. On this day, the jagged ridgeline is an exciting contour that encloses the entire cirque while a network of slushy snow makes navigating the upper reaches a slippery pursuit.

The struggle to attain a resistant pinnacle examines even the most enthusiastic explorer. Within this simplified circle of rock, the resolute wanderer will hopefully find enough peace, strength and conviction to scramble through another year.

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