Category: About The Paintings

I first visited Telluride in Colorado in the late 80’s when my sister lived near Squaw in California. For a you English man, it was a bit of a shock like a few bits of America to a young, naive British mind. I had skied the Alps since the age of 3 and skiing was rustic log cabins, old historic medieval villages, weird foreign languages, garlic breath and copious fondue cheese Schnitzel while watching yodeling short men slapping buts of even shorter men in leather shorts.

Driving across Southern Colorado on the way back from a winter surfing in Mexico I happened to drive through Telluride on the way to Taos and Santa Fee. The sun was shining and in the desert like valleys, the air con was on, and I had not even the slightest thought about skiing. Then it was like the car entered a portal to a strange galaxy. Guys and girls were walking down the clapboard high street beamed straight out of a Western movie with ski gear, carrying skis. It was like some strange movie. Nothing matched.

“You can’t just go skiing here, its all wrong. This was a western set and nothing should be there but 10 gallon hats, guys in sweaty shirts swinging guns and slapping through saloon doors picking fights. There should be horses and waggons cactuses and plenty of dust. I felt like leaning out of the window and telling them to all go home, they were ruining the place.

Skiing was very close to my heart and was solidly built in the Alpine tradition of French, Austrian and Swiss Alps with a bit of Italy. Mining towns and the wild West were in another place totally, a different film altogether. They were not meant to mix. One was in a hot dusty place, the other was cold and icy. It was all wrong and who ever wrote the script would never make a success of this one and should be fired.

It took a while, I even drove through Telluride and did not think once about putting skis on my boots. My Alpine skiing illusion was being severely challenged. It took another days drive until I got to Taos and after driving past a ski hire shop I could begin to integrate my mind into this strange new ski world. I tentatively tried out some cross country skis which I had never tried before and haven’t since. Skiing without a lift, that’s how messed up I was. I really wasn’t ready for lifts and downhill slopes. My illusions and dreams of the European Alpine world were not wanting to be challenged too much.

It took another day driving down to Santa Fee that I eventually took hold of my mind and edged towards the American downhill way, or at least the Colorado way and began to entertain the possibility that skiing was possible alongside the Wild West landscape and a dream was born. This year I hope to return to Telluride to re photograph it and paint in some of its incredible scenery and ski scene.

I love it really and I do love skiing without a lift too.

Check out the ski paintings and ski prints to see if I have painted your favourite resort yet.

This is part of my new series of flow paintings from the mountains. These very special paintings are not just trying to capture a moment, a feeling in a point in time, they are all about the flow of the mountain pistes. From top to bottom, the lifts the cafes, the circuit from the top of the mountain and then after such a perfect powder run you head back to the top again for another go. But when and where do you fit in the morning coffee to give those legs a rest and reminisce about all that fun.

The first, a really crazy ski print from Mt Fort in Verbier Switzerland. The most epic of off piste centres at the top of this incredible mountain. Three cable cars converge and culminate in this remarkable bit of marked off piste from the ridge down onto the glacier and then follow another epic descent down into Siviez. This is a bit of an unusual painting as parts of it go round the edge of the canvas in miniature to help create the flow of the piste.

Round the edge of the canvas there are some mini extras to bring the flow to life. At the base is the drag (Gentianes) from the end of this route off Mt Fort back up to the mountain restaurant at the base of the Mont Fort Cable Car at Col des Gentianes. Round the corner to the left is a miniature of the 2 cable cars and high above the Cabane Restaurant. But hang on there are 3 cable cars there going up to Mt Fort if you count them not 2. This place is one of the only places in the world where 3 cable cars meet and that is pretty special and with all that off piste underneath. This is just a little nod to the unusual here which is why it is one of my favouite places in the world….and this one of my favourite paintings…..it just takes me straight back to this piste in perfect conditions.

To the right are skiers tracking across to get some fresh tracks further across the mountain heading down to La Chaux. They are so far away they are tiny and a bit tricky to see on the image above but they are there on the bigger canvas. You can use the zoom with mouse over to see them on the print site https://fineartamerica.com/featured/verbier-mt-fort-ski-poster-the-full-version-pete-caswell.html

The main piste or powder run has lots of crazy skiers, boarders and crashes to keep you amused for ever and remind you of a blast of a time cutting through all the soft pillows of powder.

Under the main cable cars off the side of the canvas is the Cabane Restaurant which is a wonderful off piste adventure to get to for lunch, high up in the mountains and reminds me of the very special traverse to get there for a very special meal in a very special place, so high, perched up on the rocky outcrop just below the summit.

Take a look closer on the print site and use the mouse over to zoom in on some of the tiny details. https://fineartamerica.com/featured/verbier-mt-fort-ski-poster-the-full-version-pete-caswell.html

Next painting in this series is off down the Col du Tortin trying to bring this epic off piste adventure to life.

Pete’s New Ski Prints Collection is his most admired yet and one of Pete’s favourites.

Check out Pete’s Favourite Collection of Ski Prints or Snowboarder Prints

You Can see all the Ski / Snowboard Prints here or prints listed by Ski Resort Here. Listed by Country USA Ski Resorts first, then European Alps, France, Austria, Italy, Switzerland which is the larger collection.

All Prints are made by Fine Art America in the USA. and they give you a 30 day money back guarantee.

Pete has one of the largest collection of Alpine ski prints in the world and was featured in the renowned – The Ski Journal.

I started off my ski prints many years ago in an impressionist style, innocent and beautiful but a little constrained. This quickly developed into broad bold strokes of pure deep colour lusciously daubed onto the pistes and trees to capture the depth and energy of feeling of the mountains, with a light nod to the impressionist painters of the 19th Century. This moved into quite a crazy period of Lowry like figures drunk on the high octane energy of the Alps before it all calmed down into some deep white textured off piste scenes and resort ski favourites with heavily texture avenues, glades, pistes and lifts cutting through the mountains.

This season I have been digging deep into the depths of feeling, the intensity, the sounds, the solitude and the cold of the mountains in the depths of winter. This started with the sketches of my favourite blizzards and snow storms of some of the best ski trips I had. Where the mountains seem to reach out and envelop you with its huge hands of peace with numbed senses, shutting down the outer life and bringing life inside into an intense glow, a sadistic satisfaction set in the rawness of the conditions. As the furnaces stoke up and the visibility shuts down, feelings are all that is left, focus, feeling, and riding with the flow in perfect inner harmony….. until bump crash and a soft pillow of powder awaits to stuff itself down your back, fill your pants and freeze your wrists. Just when you thought you had come to a standstill, you were really still moving, or at least until the moment you realised you weren’t and then you really weren’t at all. , because you were a snowman with an orange carrot nose all along.

Riddles aside this set of paintings The Skiing Feeling Collection (and Snowboarding) is the start of the exploring the colder side, greyer, moodier side of a bleak winter ski trip, but its the calm before the storm leading to the beautiful white powder blanket christened by bluebird sky days it leaves in its wake that we all long for. Within the longing are the dreams that lie in these paintings. Read here more about the Skiing Feeling Collection.

Check out a bit more about Pete on the main website www.petecaswell.co.uk and his funny story in The Ski Journal.

or check out the Original Ski Paintings which can shipped to you in the USA.

All the prints are made in the USA. But if you live outside the USA then they are made and shipped from the closest print production facility to you. If you live outside the USA check out how to get local shipping on Fine Art America for Europe, UK, Switzerland and the rest of the world..

See all the prints on Pete Caswell’s ski print site on Fine Art America

Pete has spent many years touring his favourite ski resorts to bring these paintings to life and capture those incredible feelings we all seek in the exhilaration of the Mountains.

This ski print of Mt Fort above Verbier and Nendaz is one of my favourites. Not because it is neat or tidy or even precise but its very nature captures the atmosphere at this most incredible meeting point at the base of Mt Fort in the depths of a winter storm. This was a bit of old ply I had lying around so I put some white gesso on it and splashed some paint on it without thought or care. When you paint on an old piece of wood it has a transforming effect on the painting. As its already a piece of wood that is redundant with no use, there is nothing to loose you can wreck it and it doesn’t matter, and it kind of promotes an instantaneous, risky painting. Sometimes these chance attempts at destruction to capture an atmosphere, a mood work and sometimes not and destruction is fullfilled.

In this case I already had an idea in mind to capture the 3 cable car meeting point and the final destination of the peak Mt Fort in one painting. But it never quite computed as there was too much to fit in, too many angles. This is where the instantaneous point of creation came in and in a few brush strokes everything melted into one place, or froze more to the point. This is why I really like painting on old bits of building materials I find around the studio they seem to insist on this sort of approach where creation forms out of destruction.

I normally tidy up this sort of painting and sort out all the splodges and funny shaped people which all seem to come out of the heat or cold of the moment and the madness of just splashing water and paint around . But this scrappy, splashy and haphazard approach had left something indelible on the canvas (ply) which just had to stay, it was unique and created in the heat of the moment without thought. So a bit wonky, not quite straight, this just captures the scene in mid winter January perfectly, cold and blustery as the storm moves in to dump its beautiful present of powder coating on the mountain. Within the frozen clouds and winds imagination forms. Colours are frozen out, form seems to twist and bend, people half disappear and in the extremes of the mountain cold stuck in a meter of powder without a ski seems like life itself is warping into another reality, another level.

I love it. Not least because it is the premonition of the painting below hidden within it’s frozen imagination, of the blue sky sunny skiing in fresh powder to come in the morning below of shrieks and howls in crispy blue sky echoing round the mountain lofty peaks of fun and ouverte exhilaration off bouncing powder cushions and billowing frozen ice.

Ski Prints of Verbier can be found on the international ski print site, but do read the shipping info here first to get local shipping

Vintage Ski Posters of Pete Caswell’s Ski Paintings are a very popular choice. You can choose from some of his beautiful Ski Art from most of the popular Ski Resorts of the European Alps and US resorts.

You can buy the vintage ski posters on his international print site. Select the ski resort you want which are all grouped by country and then the resorts are listed alphabetically. Then select Ski Poster and choose your size. The Posters are shipped all around the world.

Vintage Ski Posters of Pete’s Ski Paintings

If you choose to frame you vintage ski poster please check out the shipping info here to make sure you get local shipping

Pete’s ski art was featured in the cult ski magazine in the USA.

Check out the latest feature of Pete’s ski posters in the most renowned of all mags for hard core skiers, The Ski Journal https://www.theskijournal.com/product/volume-twelve-issue-four/  and featured on the front page.

Pete Caswell’s Alpine Paintings