Colorado Watercolors

I moved from downtown Boston to rural Colorado in 1985. As you may imagine, this was an exceptional shift in venue. Prior to this move I had never lived outside of Massachusetts. The air in the eastern United States is generally laden with moisture, which softens and filters the way light disburses itself. Robert Spellman watercolor of CucharaIt took some time to become used to the light in Colorado where the air is much drier and at higher altitude seems to be thinner. Also, the sun shines brightly and continuously sometimes for weeks on end. By comparison to the air I grew up in, this was like living on another planet. Over time I have come to love this light and the vast landscape of the American west; how you can see enormous weather events moving across the land. The following watercolors were all done during the years starting in the late 1980s on up to the present. Many were done outdoors in southern Colorado on the shoulders of Greenhorn Mountain. In this part of the state the mountains are part of older geologic events than the younger and more rugged mountains elsewhere in the Rocky Mountains.