Half Dome

Half Dome
Spring at Cook's Meadow
16" x 20"
[click on image to enlarge]

In late spring Yosemite starts to thaw out. Snow vanishes from the valley turning the streams into silt laden water with their highest flow.
The colorful new growth has more yellow than will be evident late in the summer.
This time I returned to a view of Half Dome in the more traditional 'landscape' canvas. This allowed room for more deciduous growth and the inclusion of the wonderful quaking aspen on the right.
The day after I finished it, I was studying a painting in the Sacramento Temple and noticed a redbud prominently featured, so I was doubly happy with my choice.
The redbud is also positioned to stop the eye as it follows the stream to the left. So the eye can stop there rather than following the stream off the canvas, and then move up into the scene.
It is a 'spring' scene however it is a struggle to avoid getting too much plain, strong green in the painting.
Lastly the small, orange foreground flowers are probably Tufted Poppies which grow in this valley rather than the nearly identical California Poppies.