High Desert Painters in Taos

That yellow sign there is absolutely no lie. It always gives me pause at this point, faced with a road that just drops off and the Rio Grande River Gorge straight ahead.
This is the road from the west side of the gorge down to Pilar and the Taos River Road: steep, winding and a lot of signs that warn about falling rocks- you know the ones that show some helpless car threatened with a boulder dropping out of the sky.
This was last Friday's painting adventure as I headed to the Village of Pilar to join up with the High Desert Painters for a day of plein air painting.









We come from all over the country to paint together in Taos, in May: Janis Loverin from Ruidoso, New Mexico, Jana Van Wyk from Cary, North Carolina, and Judy Howells and Nita Harper from Pacific Palisades in California. Sadly, we were missing 2 of our members: Ann Templeton from Texas and Nelson Hubley from Nova Scotia.
It was a week of some harsh weather changes with high winds and rain - not ideal - but Friday was perfect. When we eventually found each other on the hillside above Pilar we enjoyed views in almost every direction.
I drove down from Colorado for the day and consider it a small miracle that we met at all, there being no cell service in this part of the country - but we look for cars, or painting umbrellas and amazingly we connected. Judy Howells and Janis Loverin looked to the view over Pilar and Jana Van Wyk set her sights on the river. The piece on my unmanned easel on the right is of the view to the west and down the canyon.
Click on the photos to view them larger.