I painted this piece in two morning sessions. Fortunately the weather was very similar so the visual effects were pretty much the same. I was staying at a ranch house at the base of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.
I was greeted with this scene as the sun first crept over the high peaks. As the peaks were highlighted a beam also lit up the juniper in the foreground. The lighting changed rapidly as is common with the fast moving sun at sunrise and sunset.
Within minutes the scene changed; within an hour the scene was so different that I quit painting. Luckily the next morning I was able to finish the piece with very similar conditions.
