Land Of The Falls

Happy New Year !!

I am fortunate to have 2 pieces of work accepted into the Beaverton Visual Arts Showcase this year. I submitted 3 pieces of work for jury.

They are "15 Zebras", "Land of the Falls" and "Serene Lake"

The "15 Zebras" piece unfortunately did not meet the standards of the jurors. "Land of the Falls" and "Serene Lake" did.

This painting was inspired by the Iguazu Falls ( Cataratas del Iguazu ) in Argentina. It was one of the most awesome sights that I have witnessed. In my rendition of the Falls, I was trying to exploit the translucent property of the Xuan paper to bring out the water. All the bodies of water in this painting are nothing but voids, empty spaces. The trick is to define these "voids" and to give them characteristics of vapor, spray, and flow.

Painting the land mass in a very saturated color scheme helps to bring out the water. This intensity is definitely a departure from the traditional Chinese landscape painting. The edges of the upper falls have a sharper margin, to give the ribbons that knife edge feel. The hill sides are inundated with silvery swords of water. This gives the painting energy and aura. I've added burnt sienna to the sprays to denote wash off of sand and silt.

The real Cataratas is a stretch of hundreds of falls hanging off a rim that is miles in length. I chose to condense a few falls into a plateau in this case, as if to put the falls on a pedestal. The trailing serpentine river gives reference to where the water might come from, and adds depth and distance to the scenery.

The rocky spines in the distance stand as testimony to erosion. Vapors run along side, sandwiched by the two land masses; hinting the presence of rapid waters?

I originally painted the foreground with light color rocks, but that scheme interfered with the voids of the falls. I remedied that by making the foreground even darker than the rest, and painted the rocks with the lush mossy feel. Throw in a few bamboo cultivations and stands of banana leafs, I made this painting credible.

Interesting side note, I had this old bamboo motif frame with non-reflective glass around and I thought it was perfect for this format. This painting is approximately 11 x 22 inches, a perfect 1:2 ratio, which is a standard ratio for Xuan papers. This is more conducive to landscape painting than the western frames. In fact I have picked up a few 15 x 30 canvas and I plan to do more landscape works on the Xuan paper on Canvas set up.