Northeastern Waterfall

You may think I labored over this painting....but I didn't!

You may think there's a lot of detail....But there's not!

I completed the painting (it's only 10" x 10") in three short sessions of 1-2 hrs over two days.


Everything was scrubbed in very fast and loose. Then later, I became a little more circumspect and carefully added some highlights.

That's all, the paint did the work.



Here are steps:

Quick sketch to show major shapes and areas of value.

Major darks scrubbed in. This and the next two photos are actually much lighter than they look in real life.
The camera kept lightening everything up, seeking a middle value for the photo (it thought it was helping me). It wasn't until the final photo that I discovered that by focusing on half painting and half white sheet of paper, then moving to the whole painting without refocusing, I could trick the camera and get the photo to look more like the actual color values (guess I need to learn more about digital cameras).


Live and learn....

Strengthening the darks and greens. Still loosey goosey.

Now, I slow down and start to add some lights.  I am thinking about what hue, value, and intensity are needed to make some parts come forward and others to recede.
Though the water looks white, it isn't. I haven't touched it yet with highlights.

I usually (but not always) work from top to bottom. You can see that the top looks much more finished than the painting further down.

From this point on I was adding only highlights (remember the dark areas were actually much darker than show in this photo).

And the results!


Once I had put in the sunlit water the sky looked much too dark, so I mixed up a lighter blue and restated the sky.