Adirondack Mountains & Lakes

Just came back from a painting trip to the Adirondacks in northern New York state. The mountains and lakes there are really worthy the effort of hiking up summits with my easel and paints. i picked the easiest trails possible, still, some of them i had to use four limps and my rock climbing skills.

Mt. Baker is about an hour hike. The first day i went up, i didn't stay long at summit because the weather was closing in fast. Not only i came down with empty hands, i got caught by the heavy rain and was soaking wet. So i went back up the next day, and did two paintings. One facing West:

and one facing North. I was experimenting to put focus at far back, and keep foregroud loose.

Water is always fascinating to me. There are so many lakes around this region. The next is a short nature trail by Lake Placid... in fact, the only public trail around large lakes. Most of the area around lakes are private properties. That's no fair.

Owls Head is also famous for top-roping. Couple groups were climbing on the cliff i was painting. Of course i omitted them.

My first time trying to paint sunset. I've always afraid that there won't be enough time to finish the painting since lighting is changing so quick. Finally on this trip, i decided to give it a shot. It surely was changing way faster than i expected.

It was pouring that morning, so i wondered to art galleries in town. Saranac Lake is an amazing cute little town full of great artists. One of the painters recommended this place called Visitor Interpretive Center in Paul Smith, which has numbers of trails by the marsh. So i went to check it out, and the weather turned to a great sunny afternoon just in time.

After my first attempt the day before, i started to feel a little more confident on painting sunset. I drove by a farm with an old barn bathing in the sunset lighting. It was so beautiful that i immediately pulled over by the high way and started to setup my easel.

Mt. Jo was a very tough trail (or maybe i was just tried from the continuous hiking the past few days). Although the view wasn't that satisfying comparing to the effort getting up there.

The closer to the moment sun meets the horizon, the more dramatic the scene becomes. It was an intense race with time. It was only about 30-40 minutes before it became so dark that i couldn't even tell what color i was mixing.

Copperas Pond is the bigger one amount the triple lakes in this trail. I found the complex reflections and submerged rocks in the water composed a very intriguing challenge.

I discovered that the Adirondacks has so many gorgeous mountains and lakes. It also has an inspiring artists community. It's a wonderful place for plein-air painting.