Lisa Dianne Martin
Recently we enjoyed meeting Denver artist Lisa Dianne Martin, who is in the process of climbing all of Colorado’s 14,000′ peaks (there are 53 of them!) and doing a plein air painting from the summit. She says it’s much more rewarding than taking a photo of the view, because of all the subtleties it makes you notice while you’re there.
To save time, she plans her trip using the web resource www.14ers.com and pre-mixes some of the colors she’ll need. Some of the mountains actually have a road to the top, so she can carry more gear, but some peaks require technical climbing with ropes, and she’ll go with experienced companions.
It’s not just the climbing and the time constraints that make it challenging, but also the changeable light and weather conditions at the summit.
“It made me realize how quickly the weather changes up there in terms of lighting,” she says. “You can be looking at the summit and painting it and in 30 seconds it’ll look night and day opposite, because at that altitude the sun changes in a snap. So you have to improvise, and you have to remember what you want to paint.”
Sarah Judson
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