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.

Multnomah Falls Impression

After my last attempt, which was a more Xieyi (expressive) interpretation of Multnomah Falls, I decided to carry that momentum a bit further.  I wanted to express motion and spatial relationship with more of a "presence" than descriptions of details.  The following picture was my attempt in this endeavor.

Not everybody has been to the Falls or seen pictures of it.  So I decided to play it up a little.  I used blue streaks to create the upper cliffs.  The streaks were done so that they themselves resemble moving water.

The blue wash was mixed with alum applied side tip fashion onto Xuan.  Alum functions as a sizing
agent, helps to delineate the brush strokes;  makes the brush strokes more vivid in the sea of blue wash.  Thus we have a laminar flow of blue ribbons, rounding the corner to flow into the hour-glass void below.   A grayish overlay is then applied over the blue streaks.  The grey wash was again created by using alum solution as diluent.   This was done to prevent the wash from totally blending into one big flat surface.  I wanted stroke marks to show up a little better, simulating the horizontal crevasses in the cliff wall.    These marks also helped to suggest interruptions in the stream ( even though the grey area is not the stream ) and gave an illusion of  motion.
The actual narrow ribbon of upper fall was again painted with alum first to establish a base layer of resist, to ward off  as much unintended seepage of wash as possible.  At the head of the upper fall, I just held my brush and waited for the color to slowly bleed out to the desired spaces before moving on.   This controlled osmosis when executed alongside of alum sizing will create some artifacts that will indulge your ocular senses.

The hour-glass void represented the lower fall.  Its shape was inspired by the exaggerated proportion of a woman's body.  Imagine Marilyn Monroe coming at you with open arms, donning a black cape.  Get the picture now?

The lower fall is flanked by bold side tip brushstrokes.  This was my interpretation of the near scape of the land.  The hour glass shaped lower fall was again defined by the use of alum.  I was careful to not make the entire structure black.  I took time to make sure I leave some white slivers in them, so they can breathe. 

I wish I had done the bridge in a more Xieyi fashion.  More nonchalant, more expressive.  Right now it looked too stiff.    I was pushing it too much.
There  you have it.  Multnomah Falls, Impression!