River Gorge Landscape

 

With the furor of Covid-19 still raging, the outdoors is perhaps a relatively safe place for a respite  The Pacific Northwest certainly has its claim of fame, as far as picturesque vistas are concerned, but even the famous Multnomah Falls was off limits for a lengthy period, to curb crowding.  The Falls is located in the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic area, some 40 miles east of the city of Portland, and driving there is a wonderful way to spend an hour motoring.   Once you are outside of the city limits, the freeway opens up to relaxed cruising.  Or you can take the Old Columbia River Highway for a even more scenic and leisurely drive.  The Vista House perching on a bluff overlooking the river is your introduction to the Columbia River Gorge and many small falls dotting the Old Highway.

One has seen images of the Gorge and the Vista House countless times, but it never gets old.  I'll add my footprint to that collection.

I started out by laying down the bluff and the surrounding landscape.

The exposed rock cliffs were colored with a mixture of burnt sienna and vermillion, colors that were left in my dish and I rehydrated them.  Waste not, want not.  

I decided to use an opaque color for the trees on the bluff and in-between the rocky slabs. I mixed Blue Hue with Yellow, toned down with ink to make it less vivid.

 

For the rest of the grounds I used a transparent green color, mixing my own yellow and indigo

I used the two different kinds of green, in both hue and opacity, to help me differentiate the different terrains.  

As it turned out, my palette hues were a little too vibrant.  I blamed it on my choice of using left over vermillion, which made the color too bright.  That had a rippling effect and affected the way I perceived my colors as I was continuing to paint.  I am sure my dim incandescent lamp with a beige shade had something to do with it too.  More on this later.

I ran a freeway at the bottom of the bluff, along the river's edge.  I tried to impart a smidgen of  truthfulness to the overall feel of the scenery, although I had taken some liberty to the details of the landscape.  I gathered that the silhouette of the relatively contemporary Vista House plus the bright color palette of the painting so far, definitely did not lend itself to the strict classical depiction of landscape.  I might as well insert the modern infrastructures.  I actually considered painting in power transmission towers and wind turbines.  

Since I was already on the road to some bright coloration applications, I might as well make the sky dramatic by using a bright red color, as a backdrop to the Vista House.  Go with the flow, right?

I needed to take a break and give myself a chance to evaluate what I had done so far.  

I alluded to the fact that I was painting under a dim light with a bad lamp shade.  For some reason I seem to function better in cramped quarters with less than ideal surroundings.  Most of my painter friends would create an atelier in a bright room with picture windows and a huge desk.  I am the exact opposite.  I suspect it had something to do with my upbringing.  I had never had a room that I could call my own, and had always slept on a sofa while growing up.  Living in the city there was never a moment of silence.  I had gotten used to that and adapted well.  In fact, I could never study in the library.  It was too quiet.  I needed to have the TV set or radio on, as background noise.  The noisier is the environment, the better I could concentrate.

I feel naked and helpless in a bright, nicely furnished room.  I often pick a corner desk with no windows in cramped quarters to paint,  I get an adrenaline rush when I paint or study in the wee hours of the day, when I know I should be in bed.   I'm more inspired for some reason under those circumstances.