We continue our travels to Yellowstone after spending the night at Peek Ranch, a private horse ranch on the border of west Idaho traveling up the Snake River. It is the same route that the Louis and Clark expedition followed as he and a team of explorers, commissioned by Thomas Jefferson, searched for a northern passage through Northern America. Our trail drifts Northwest of Yellowstone along the backside of the Tetons, a route made famous by early western fur trappers who named the mountain range (which resembled large pointed breasts) the “Tetons.”
Then, our compass points east and we ascend the foothills to Harriman Ranch, where early wealthy visitors would stay before entering Yellowstone. It is now a wildlife refuge and a great location to sketch a spectacular variety of birds and animals. I am thrilled to be walking in the footprints left by Thomas Moran and Albert Bierstadt, famous 19th century painters who also visited and painted the park. The Lodge Pole pine trees dominate the forests that open up to vast meadows will provide great backdrops for the studio paintings of Yellowstone that I will paint this winter.
The weather is changing and we can feel the hint of winter in the air. I so hope that I make it to Yellowstone at the best time to capture the changing of the seasons on my canvas.
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Plein air and Alla Prima artist Stefan Baumann, host of the PBS painting series “The Grand View, America’s National Park through the eyes of an artist” and author of “Observations Of Art and Nature,” travels in his vintage travel trailer painting America’s western landscape. Baumann paints outdoors with oils and canvas capturing stunning vistas, wildlife, western landscapes, National Parks and still life, thrilling art collectors throughout the world. He has many collectors acquiring his paintings as investment internationally. His painting style is called Romantic Realism with Lumunism and the extraordinary way he captures the effect of light is a truly an American Style used to paint the Western Landscape. He can be seen painting in Yellowstone, Yosemite and in the Grand Canyon and Baumann’s “how to paint” DVDs filmed on location in the National Parks are the very best on the market.