Rebirth of Multnomah Falls

One of the places I visited while travelling this summer was Multnomah Falls.  This is an attraction I frequented several times a year so I know it pretty well; so I thought.  I was functioning like a tour guide for my visitors, and as I was verbalizing  my observations, I realized what I did wrong with a painting I did years ago.

I retrieved the painting from my attic and worked on a plan of attack.  I wanted to correct my mistakes.

Here's the original painting

The most obtrusive offense to me was the gaping void left on top of the water fall.  I must had been so enthralled about the water that I thought it could just appear out of the thin air.

There also seemed to be a strong representation of parallel lines in the painting; the trees on the left, the water falls, and the two really obvious trees on the right.  I also did not enjoy the weird tree on the upper right, despite it could have actually looked like it.

I remember when I was putting together this painting, I was trying to incorporate the traditional method of painting mixed foliage, as exemplified by the Mustard Seed  Garden.  The fact remains that the painting looked very staged; as if I just threw a bunch of things haphazardly together and called that done.  I know the artist has certain leeway in fabrication, especially when this is not en plein air; but the fact remains that the sum has to be greater than the parts.

First on my agenda was to paint in the grey sky and plug up the space above the upper fall.  What I had initially painted suggested a separation of the cliff into two halves, bisected by the fall, which is not feasible. I failed to recognize that the cliff was a land mass, on which a river flows and the river cascaded down the cliff face as a waterfall.  I needed the trees in the background to account for the land beyond the line of sight.

I then worked on the cliff face by making it darker, to better contrast with the waterfall.  I used a chuen brushstroke that helped to impart texture, making the rock face more pronounced.

I also added leaves to the weird tree on the upper right. I used a kidney shaped dot brushstroke, just to add variety.

I then proceeded to darken to two parallel tree trunks on the right, and shortened one of the exposed member.  What made the original setup more obnoxious was that the parallel lines were of equal length.
The resulting trees looked a lot more pleasing.

.I really liked the void left just north of the twin trees now.  That little bit of space created a distance, separating the background from the middle and the front.  We now have depth perspective.

I thought the original painting lacked punch; missing a hook.

It happened that my visit was at a time when leaves were about to don their autumn colors.
I also remembered a picture I took last year of fall colors,

so I shall borrow from this scene.

I tried to do the leaves in a cross hatch fashion to give them more texture.  I did this by laying down my brush, employing the full length of the tip and belly of the nib.

The effect was too strong and looked fake; reminded me of a bad case of artificial sharpening on the photoshop.  So I eventually sanded it down to acquire that mottled look.

I gave the lower half of the painting an orange red wash, to impart a warm cast to the foreground.  I thought that helped to delineate the front, the middle and the back.

Now the painting still encompasses the various types of leaves to describe mixed foliage in the traditional brush.  One can  find round dots, kidney dots, straight hash, pine needle, willow, maple, bamboo and  rhododendron leaves represented in the mix, but the varieties are able to coexist in better harmony than before.