#22 - start of the 4th week

Now, I wanted to paint on the clayboard for this one, but I didn't have any with me in class today, so, I did it on my standard 260# Arches cold press, I was tempted to start it over when I got home, I got as far as unwrapping the the package, then, my senses kicked in and said "Vivian, just finish this one, you can paint on the clayboard tomorrow", so I listened to myself and finished it, I didn't get at it right away, after class we had an Arts Alive meeting then my friend Carol and I went out to eat, so, I didn't get at it until 8:30, I'm running on empty sleep wise so, I'm going to make this quick.

This painting is primarily transparent (since I was in class, that's my normal palette), but I have opaque palette set up at the studio, so I did do some opaques, you will see that with the overlay of the leaves at the top of the picture, I did a bit in the water also. I started at the top with the green and then painted a pale wash of the beige on for the rocks then I jumped in and laid in the waterfalls, I mixed Prussian Blue and burnt sienna and added a bit of VanDyke Brown, to gray it down and then added a bit more green, the water looked pretty Blue/green gray, I leveled out the top of the falls and then washed in the blue/green/gray mix for the front part reminding myself that it's not a flat space and moved my brush around touching it to the paper here and there and softening some of the edges, I then leveled out the flat water at the bottom and added some more rocks in the foreground (I really squashed this picture up to get it in the square format), I added shadows to the rocks and kept building up the textures moving back and forth from the water to the rocks and then to the trees, at the last I added some opaque tree trunks in the far background and a couple branches hanging over the rocks, I also spattered a bit, you will notice there is quite a bit of grayed down violet/brown on most of the rocks, I think it makes a great rock color. This painting is done from some photo's I took on vacation about 21 years ago in North Carolina, the scenery there is gorgeous, I'd go again.

I hope you enjoy this painting and I'll talk to you tomorrow, good night.