Thursday, July 1, 2021

Finishing Multnomah Falls

 After a couple of weeks looking at my bouquets of flowers adorning the Multnomah Falls, I felt less offended by the painting.  Granted it wasn't what I had in mind but it had its own nuances.

Anyways I needed to go through with what I had imagined originally.  So I liberally applied my cinnabar to showcase the fall foliage.  They were no longer these timid dots but a full blown fall color with aplomb.  


I was having problem with the darkest black level along the bottom of the painting.  The ink I was using dried to a muted black.  So I broke out my special very "black" ink and overpaint those areas, and also used that to better define my tree silhouettes on the right hand side.  Notice I used the black smudges to contrast with the lack of which on the left side of the painting.  Same as I chose a composition where the upper fall was not at dead center, especially in relation to the lower fall.  I thought such contrast added interest to the painting.

I really enjoyed the highlighting done on the bridge.  It really set off the bridge against the background. I am convinced that this is an advantage of western painting over traditional Chinese painting, if one's concern was realism.  All this time I was thinking how I would have portrayed the bridge if I had to use classical Chinese brush methods.  I probably would have left a misty void behind the bridge to set it up and gave it distance from the background. 


The painting was being wet mounted.


Framed Multnomah Falls painting.



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