Esoterika

I did this painting last August, just hadn't gotten around to scanning and posting it. I was camping on the south McKenzie for a long enough stint that I could spend a few hours doing a real plein aire painting. I had been pondering for a while that one's programmed instinct is to depict water as blue--but the river up there isn't blue at all. It's crystal clear, and the rocks beneath the water are mostly gray-green or rust-colored, while the depths take on a green tinge. So how to paint that without it looking murky and dull? That was my experiment.

This was a good learning exercise for me in many ways. For one thing, I tend to be more interested in depicting figures than backgrounds, but in recent years I've been grappling with some concepts of color and lighting and with the desire to paint complete scenes with directional light instead of just isolated figures of interest in objective color. So a river/landscape isn't something I would normally set out to paint. I also may not have ever done 1. a complete painting (not a sketch; not a drawing) of 2. this type of outdoor scene 3. in situ (not from a photo or imagination).

(click to see the whole thing)


Given all that, I was fairly happy with how it turned out. It took me three hours. I deliberately chose to paint a section of river that didn't have any really striking features of distinctive rocks or trees; the painting would have to work in terms of my rendering of light and color, not because of dramatic composition. And I would not use any pure blue.

If anything, I went a little too far to the green side, vs. the more muted gray-green, but I really didn't want it to be murky. The rocks got a little too yellow, I didn't entirely capture the translucence, but I feel it was a good effort. I used Yarka's cheap yet wonderful semi-moist watercolors plus a little opaque white, on a cheap 7x10 watercolor tablet.

For reference, here is a photo of approximately the stretch I was looking at, though the light had changed a little, and of course I simplified the background. (I did not paint from the photo, I just took it for later comparison). The photo doesn't really convey how much movement was in the water.


And here's a closeup of the water. Not easy to paint!


This was probably also good for me in another way... I've been noticing that left to my own devices, I really don't use green much in my artwork!

(hdlao wrote: "Barak's ashes are being scattered the weekend of June 28. drop a few flower petals into the nearest body of water on mid-day Sunday. Red roses were his fav..." So on this perfect summer day I went down to the rose garden by the Willamette River and scattered some. This being for Barak, of course things had to be ornery; the wind was blowing off the river, so half of them blew back onto the bank, but enough drifted down to float away. And so...)
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I scattered petals on the water and thought of you:
perfectly imperfect, roaring at your squires
laughing at your foolish black goat dancing on hot oven rocks.
A man remade, shy in your new Mongolian name and clothes,
then glowering when a certain song was sung
(“And you will know him, to be sure”--we did).
The gasp when your knighting was announced—then the cheer;
the brief pause as they realized, yes, he has changed and grown; yes,
this is right.
A forceful king, then sometimes cheerful as a child,
teaching your populace to do the “wave” at court,
brandishing the oosik as the crowd roared with delight.
Unmistakable, irrepressible, a furious force upon the field,
brash and full of humor, immense in spirit, strong,
annoying as all hell, sometimes, but thoughtful underneath it all.
A force for honor, and for honesty, painful though it be:
you would speak truth to power, name wrongs for what they are;
you would take up the gage if honor did demand.
Now there is a wide gap in the shield wall, a roaring silence left;
Now all the spoken and unspoken goes unsaid.
Perfectly imperfect, loud and echoing in my thoughts
and passing now, dissolving now, like petals on the stream.