Red Alpenglow - Colored Pencil Drawing

"Red Alpenglow" Colored Pencil

Down in southern Colorado a string of snow-covered mountains looms over a broad, ranchland valley. It’s just before dawn and the sun’s rays are streaming into the atmosphere where the light is reflected onto the peaks, creating a red alpenglow.

The drawing’s obscure foreground is still frozen in a state of mystic shadow. A stand of dark trees stretches across the page as the strange silhouette is outlined in blue, emphasizing the scene’s surreal essence.

The snowy pasture gradually gives way to the rosy cordillera where the shapes are defined by passages of delicate shading. Devoid of all detail, the white summits melt into a bleached sky, confirming the mountains’ sacred connection with heaven.

Rather than race to faithfully record the fleeting nature of a transitory sunrise, it seems like there must be something much deeper. An expressionistic approach releases the artist to pursue a more personal interpretation that depends on a certain truth through exaggeration.