Dawa Sherpa grew up in Khumjung, below the sacred peak of Khumbila, and spent his twenties carrying loads and guiding on the trails of Solukhumbu. He started painting in the long evenings at lodges, in a small sketchbook with a box of watercolours.
Sketch first, paint later
On the trail, Dawa makes fast pencil sketches and colour notes, often in under ten minutes. Back in the studio he works only from those notes and from memory. He says a photograph shows him too much.
A photo remembers every rock. I want to remember how cold it was, and how the light moved on the snow.
Dawa Sherpa
Light on snow
Snow is never white in his paintings. It is blue in the shadows, pink and gold at dawn, and grey under cloud. Dawa mixes these colours on the palette first, then lays them in with a knife or a stiff brush, leaving the paint thick where the light hits.
His newest paintings, High Himal After Snowfall and Icefall in Blue, are in the gallery now. See all Himalayan landscapes.
