Forest Edge - Colored Pencil Drawing

"Forest Edge" Colored Pencil

It's an early spring evening in the Front Range foothills as golden light streams through this quiet corridor. Waves of yellow grasses churn across the valley floor like a turbulent, yellow sea.

The shadows are violet and their strange shapes follow the contour of a rugged landscape. The centerpiece of the scenery is a pair of red bushes that inhabit this special domain.

The forest edge is a dark barrier of scattered pine trees set in the picture's background. Subtle shading helps define the individual forms while a few streaks of lemon break up the deepest greens.

A single Ponderosa seems to have captured the spotlight as it stretches vertically into a powder-blue sky. In the vast expanse a few clouds drift slowly out of the west with trail edges that disintegrate into the atmosphere.

Simplified shapes and exaggerated color are stippled onto the page in a pointillistic manner, recording an impression of a fleeting moment in time. This rendering may not be even remotely accurate but that's the way I see it.

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