Yosemite is as advertised in every single way. The Tunnel View entrance into Yosemite Valley frames the first glimpse of Half Dome like an Ansel Adams photograph and everywhere you look is a postcard. Spring and Summer get most of the accolades, but Fall and Winter are very pretty and mostly free of crowds.

This is one of the earliest paintings I did. It’s acrylic paints on canvas. I posted a photo on social media and someone commented that I had the lower falls too level to the upper falls, which wasn’t true to nature. An artist need not follow rules of nature, though. An artist can make fields pink and cows purple and clocks melt. But, nonetheless, as a new artist, I went back into the painting and lowered the lower fall. There’s a lot I would probably do differently with this if I painted it today, but I’m still very happy with the painting, even though it was an early piece, and I have it hanging in my studio.