Unlike the upper fall, where I was able to reveal some of the spraying and pulsating energy of the water, I have painted in 2 parallel dark lines into the bottom fall. What was I thinking.
I pulled out my cardboard framing borders and was trying to see where I should cut the Xuan paper so that I could pretend that the mistake never happened. Then I thought about an old trick that I've described in my previous blogs..... using a transparency.
I fashioned a few trees using white titanium (for better contrast against the dark background) on this piece of transparency, such that I could move this about the painting and see the best placement to obscure the parallel lines.
Once I have the location finalized, I can now paint in the trees for real. This transparency trick allows me to figure out the placement and size of add-ons without having to commit to it.
I've added 3 spectators to the bridge just to warm this painting up a little bit.
I am not totally happy with the overall feel of this painting. There isn't enough of a contrast between the front and the back. I am afraid to make the front look too dark or I would lose the details on the rocks. The other option is to darken the back, but that would regress my nice rock walls , which I thought is quite dramatic. Besides, I thought my foreground is too dark for this set-up. But wait, I have one more option. Since I am going to be mounting this piece of Xuan on canvas (as in my Xuan-Boo technique), I can play with my canvas gesso colors to see if I can remedy my front to back contrasts.
What I do like is that I have at least tried to establish a yin an yang contrast. I painted trees on alternate sides of the fall, to avoid a bilateral symmetry. I've painted the left side lighter than the right and highlighted the trees such that illumination is from above. I've tried to create contrasts within each sector of the painting.
I'll post my painting again after it is mounted and framed.
Like I said, come hell or high water, I've done it!
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