When I paint, I want to show what it felt like to be there, living in that environment, experiencing it. I want to capture it so clearly that I can breathe the air, feel the warm sun and cool shadows, hear the wind in the trees and the water rippling over rocks. I want to feel the textures: smooth aspen bark, rough granite, crystalline snow. Painting always brings me back.
For many years, I rendered highly detailed landscapes in pen & ink, graphite and colored pencil. I also experimented with alkyd paint.
I tend to use softer papers with richer hues, and take advantage of the full range of hard and soft sticks of this marvelous medium. Though I have a good variety of colors and values, my palette is relatively lean; rarely do I use 30 pastels in a single painting. I use different brands to achieve colors, textures and details as needed, mainly Mount Vision, Sennelier, Rembrandt and NuPastel.
Mountain themes permeat my work as they have permeated my life. I grew up in the Andes and still love high places. After logging many miles in the North and Central Cascades, and Oregon's spectacular Wallowa Mtns., my wife and I moved to Turlock, in California's Central Valley. Now we explore the Sierra Nevada, the East Bay, the Diablo Range and the Central Coast, camera in hand and sketchbook in the backpack. Trips to Taiwan, my wife's homeland, have inspired me to widen my horizons even further.
From vast panoramas to intimate viewpoints, I find painting the landscape a never-ending challenge. My hope is that those who see my work will feel the joy and love I felt for the place that moment when I was there, watching the light, breathing the air--and by loving it, care for it.
--Mark Ivan Cole