Autumn in Yosemite Valley

El Capitan's pale granite wall rises at the left under round white clouds, Cathedral Rocks stand dark on the right, and between them Phyllis Shafer fills the valley floor with conifers, ochre oaks and one rust-red patch of scrub. The Merced runs slate blue across the foreground, its bank lined with pebbles and curling, sculpted clumps of green.

Shafer outlines everything, so each tree and boulder has a definite edge to find. The sky and the flat grey water are the two areas without one. Finished size 63.5 x 50.8cm.