I’m in love with mountains! I like hiking, scenery, driving and of course painting mountains. So, here’s something totally new! In nearly all landscape art the view is from the side and hardly ever from the top down. Artists try to capture the character of mountains using local color, shape, shadows, light and shading. I thought, what if I could show the color in paint, the shape in relief, and let the light take care of the shadows.

watercolor painting on 3D plaster mountains with lights shining from the bottom inside of a shadowbox
lights illuminate the desert landscape in this 36″ x 36″ watercolor painting on 3D plaster mountains

Here’s a photo of what I designed and developed as an art form to more intuitively portray the look of mountains from an aerial perspective. It is a bit abstract but I like abstract paintings that give the mind something to look for. In this case it is the coloring of the desert as the sun sets and part is warm exposed by the sun and part is cool where the light does not fully reach. This scene transitions from warm to cool from south to north. I could imagine the shape of shadows but why not create the mountains with three dimensional shape and add lighting to solve the location of where sunlight reaches the terrain?

watercolor painting on 3D plaster mountains with lights shining from the bottom inside of a shadowbox
lights illuminate the desert landscape in this 36″ x 36″ watercolor painting on 3D plaster mountains

A shadow box is used to block ambient light from illuminating the mountains from the side. The 6″ bottom shelf is a little bit wider than the 4″ sides to allow the lights to be placed at a low sun angle (but not too low). The lights are battery powered LED with a remote control. I plan to make other versions of this and this one is for sale for only $350 frame and lights included. Free shipping. Please see more at my shop https://shop.watercolorwildflowers.com/collections/all