Three ladies visited the Tetons for a week last summer.  They spent time on both sides of the relatively narrow range, enjoying Grand Teton National Park, Jackson Hole, WY & the quieter west side — Teton Valley, ID. You really can’t go wrong, considering the mountain views are spectacular on both sides of the monumental peaks.

As luck would have it, one of these gals distracted her friends while she picked up the last Mountain Montage brochure at a local establishment. ”

This would be the perfect gift,” she thought.  And she was right!  What a great idea — to have a local artist from your vacation destination create personalized fine art from your vacation photographs. Genius; though of course, I’m obviously biased.

She sent me a variety of pictures with free reign to create three 9″x12″ picture boxes – one for each of them to commemorate the trip.  This was going to be a fun assignment.  The first step was to decide how to divvy the photos amongst the 3 canvases. Knowing the area gave me the slight advantage that I could easily pair locations after I organized the photos into their venues.

Once a canvas is laid out, there is a moment of relief when I can envision how the sometimes disparate photographs will come together into a single vista. Though every piece inevitably has a ‘perspective crux’ – assuaging a horizon line into the bottom of the scene stacked above it, integrating macro and landscape images seamlessly, combining two totally different locations into one, etc. These challenge continue to hone my skills and demand innovation and perseverance.

The paintings landed safely with their patron to happy reviews.  I’m sure the immense thoughtfulness of her gift, in addition to the artworks themselves, will be incredibly well-received by her friends as well.