Frankenstein Cliffs

This is the final painting of Frankenstein Cliffs. I just have to varnish it.I'm thinking about buying more floater frames  since I like the way they look. Photo below shows my painting of Mount Willard in a floater frame. These are both acrylic paintings, 16" X 20" on stretched canvas.  I enjoy working on this size canvas. My earlier posts give more information on the hike.

Both of these scenes are in Crawford Notch, New Hampshire. This is a beautiful area of the state for hiking. There are many places on the highway where you can just pull into a parking area and take photos (for the non-hikers). This is in the White Mountains of NH, about 3 hours drive north of Boston. Route 302 is generally kept open, even in the winter.

I have a few more fall classes to finish up my small oil paintings.  I also started a workshop on palette knife painting.  I have learned the difference now between palette knives and painting knives. I'm looking forward to my class this Thursday. We have already prepared an underpainting to work on, a little scene with mountains, trees and grass. It should be fun to play with.

I have been preparing my card inventory for my next craft show which is coming up soon. Saturday, Nov. 9th at Brookside Church, 2013 Elm Street, Manchester, NH, 9-3.  This will be my 4th year displaying at this fair. I share a table with my husband, author Joe Smiga and we enjoy meeting with all the people there and looking at the other tables.  It's a good place to pick up gift items, or items for yourself. See you there.

To purchase a card or print of these images: Frankenstein Cliffs
View from Mount Willard

Canyonlands National Park

A few photos from Canyonlands National Park in Moab, Utah (from last week's trip). Rest can be seen at: Canyonlands Photos.

Arches National Park

I had a wonderful vacation last week in Utah. I spent 5 days with my daughter. We hiked in Arches National Park and Canyonlands National Park (in Moab, Utah). We also walked to the Liberty (?) park and visited the Tracy Aviary near her house in Salt Lake City.  I posted the Arches photos and will do the others soon. You can click on that link to see the rest of the photos.  I loved the fall colors of the cottonwoods and aspens.

Frankenstein Cliffs WIP

As I mentioned in my last blog post, I wanted to try painting the cliffs (see last photo on last post for better photo of actual cliffs).  I'm enjoying painting again in acrylics. I have been trying to learn oil paints (water mixable) and I am a bit frustrated. So I decided to take a break and do another acrylic landscape (my favorite).  While this painting still has a long way to go to completion, I am enjoying the process and thinking back on the hike we took.

When I have some of the other small oil paintings closer to completion, I will post them here.

Fall Hiking to Arethusa Falls & Frankenstein Cliffs

We hiked over the weekend in the Crawford Notch area of New Hampshire. The view from the parking lot shows the Frankenstein Cliffs and we were up there, about 2500'.  The trail in that area was poorly marked on the way down and we felt that the trail signs lied, this was much more than 3 miles. At the end, we bushwhacked to the railroad bed and followed the rails back to the beginning of the hike, then back down to our car.  Total hike for the oldsters, 6 hours. We would not recommend the cliff trail, but were glad we did it.

These are the highest falls in New Hampshire, about 200 feet high. You can't really feel the scale and majesty of the falls from the photo.  Beautiful fall colors on the trees now too. The hike to the falls was definitely worthwhile and that trail was clearly marked.

I think I will make a new painting of this cliff (glacier).  It will remind me how much I ached going downhill, but how proud I am of myself that I can still do it! The views from the cliff are of the presidential range of mountains.

Crawford Notch State Park (link)