During the Fire, a painting of Yellowstone’s East Gate area

I set a goal for myself in 2017 to paint every mountain range in my home state after taking a road trip. This caused an immense pressure to learn how to paint recognizable landmarks because, hilariously, my home state is Wyoming. Our mountains are iconic.

Typically, I'm not huge on painting from a photo. I can usually tell when others do it, at least in drawing. The perspective and lighting will always be a bit off compared to adjusting as light changes on the subject or when people start slouching while sitting. During the Fire is an exception. In 2017, almost the entirety of southern Montana was on fire that August. Yellowstone was miserable. The sky was trying its best to be blue. The clouds were overtaken by smoke. Everything took on a much pinker and orange tone. You could see the smoke settling in the valleys.

Right at sunset, I was caught in the traffic jam of bison going wherever it is they go at sunset. In my infinite wisdom, I took a picture of the rock formations and swore I'd paint it. Friends, I tried. I tried for two whole years to get the studies of this particular valley just the way I wanted it. My skillset was just not there yet. I put the project down for years.

I painted this version during the extended Annual Great December Burnout of 2023-2024. I took my time with this one. There's no time lapse video because I had my phone screen against my nose to get the color matching accurate. Green (or more accurately, the perfect tone of grey) is the scariest color for me. Extremely recognizable animals are hell on my nerves. Yellowstone is so uniquely majestic that you can't take too many artistic liberties.

Color matching is the most important part of painting after composition

But my god I did it.

East Gate in all its glory

I was able to fix the warping issue and it should be just about flush to the wall now, if not barely noticeable. If you have a guy who can restretch on different bars, I highly encourage it. The wrapped sides are painted black, and there is gallery wire for hanging attached.