Creek Zen

Once in a while, everything seems just right, and a better painting happens.  It has only happened occasionally to me before; that is when things flow with minimal struggle and the end product looks just right.   Fortunately it happened during the Camp Hill competition, and the painting won an award.

I'm a morning person and for this painting, I was all set up by 7:30 and ready to paint.   The location was the Yellow Breeches Creek close to where I had painted the "Barn at Dusk" the evening before.   The light was - of course - completely different since it was twelve hours later.   

Creek Zen in Progress

The creek was crystal clear if you looked straight down to the colorful, rocky riverbed, but if you looked upstream the dark green underbrush on the far shore was reflected perfectly.   The dark bushes and their reflections were so perfectly matched that the shoreline was practically imperceptible.  Conversely on the right-hand shore, the shrubs and grasses were brightly lit by the full strength low morning sun.   Likewise the reflections of these bright yellows and green were just as bright and strong.   Bright on the right shore, dark on the left.    Nice contrast but they needed to be integrated.    To rectify this sharp imbalance, I added the vivid gold-green tree bow overhead with the thickest juiciest palette knife strokes.


Creek Zen

Okay and then?   A fisherman with red sleeves waded into the calm pool of water upstream and started to cast.   Perfect timing.   The painting needed it.   Distant figures are three or four dots of color.   The reflections are the same dots pulled down into the dark water in one, long careful stroke.