The Sentinels of Red Canyon

This scene is at the entrance at the west end of Red Canyon on the highway to Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah. The rock formations in this entire "Grand Staircase" area are absolutely stunning... a geologist's utopia I would imagine, and a landscape painter's delight. These massive "sentinels" stood watch over the entrance to the canyon. The late day light made them glow against the dark of the trees and the brilliant cobalt blue sky. I originally painted this in 2010 and it was 12x30. As I studied it over the last couple of years, I realized the the entire right side of the painting really added nothing to the painting and actually took away from my focal point of the piece. So...I played around with cropping it and ended up cutting it down to 10x20. I also reworked part of it and am now very happy with it.