Continue with my alum solution painting

After further treatment to the background to make the white pop a little bit more and decided that this is the side I preferred as the top, I arrived at a point when I was ready to paint my elk in the middle, as I did the last painting.

But then I noticed the void at the bottom left.  I needed to address it.

Should I treat that as mist and paint that accordingly?  If it was mist, I would have liked it to appear at a few more locations to permeate the entire woods.  I looked for additional locations where I could plant my vapor.

I struggled with that thought for a few days and decided against it.  I wanted something fresh.

Let me transform that corner into a riverbed.   I could say that the trees ended at the banks of a river or a creek.

Using alum solution I painted in the bank, flanked by rocks and boulders in the middle of the stream, again covered with snow.

 I decided to use ink to represent the water ( at night, in the dark?).  I enjoyed the contrast of the dark water against the background.

The effect was pretty stunning visually, I told myself.

But this attempt had me discombobulated, sort of.  The bottom left drew so much attention now and seemed disconnected with the rest of the painting,  especially the vertical void in the middle.  The path I had allocated seemed out of place now.

My remedy was to extend the water into the middle of the painting.  I painted in a couple of rocks to establish the other bank of the water.

Again using ink to depict water, I extended my river across the middle, and the tree at the center became the foreground, partially blocking the view of the water.  Working from the back of the paper I took out the path in the center by painting in more trees, and tried to hide the rest of the voids as an amorphous vapor.

So now my painting became a snow covered woods along a river or creek.  This was very different from what I had planned originally.

I was not ready to give up my animal.  I thought I would try a different species.

How about a mama black bear with her cubs?  That would be cute.  If nothing else, they could make the painting more personable?

It should be clear by now that the way I employed the alum solution was to exploit the way it interacts with ink and Xuan.  I should also make it succinct that I was using both sides of the paper during the course of the painting, to the extent that I often get confused myself and couldn't decide which side showed more nuances.

To illustrate my point, I hung my painting against a window and took pictures of both sides:

In the end, this one gets my nod.