Waterfall Wedding Present

07july10casscam 10107july10casscam 102IMG_20141016_16533538011Nov16CassCam 097I 11Nov16CassCam 051generally have an avoidance for painting outdoor scenes.  I think that it’s because if I’m outside, I really have no idea how to focus and frame, unless I’m looking at something small.  This painting and its subject matter came about because of the upcoming (when I started) marriage of Sammi’s best friend Mary and her lovely husband, Daniel.  We decided we would work together to make a gift for them.  At the time, they were living in Kansas, and although I’ve never been to Kansas, I picture it as being rather flat.  We agreed that it would be good to make a painting of a waterfall from Daniel’s hometown to remind them of the east.  Sammi had a really nice picture that she had taken of Taughannock Falls (so she did all of the cropping) that we decided would be great to paint from.  IMG_20140930_135154551

We planed to paint it together, but as I started drawing it out on the board, I felt a panic, like it was totally outside my comfort zone.  I had the feeling that we wouldn’t finish it, but that maybe if I plugged away at it alone it might eventually get it done.  I think I took pictures of the process more to make sure that it got past the point of each photo than to document.  I had never attempted to paint rocks before.  They were tough to get through, as they were just various shades of brown without much excitement.  As I finished those I realized that I hadn’t attempted ice and snow either.  It was much more fun and moved along more quickly, as well as the water.  I saved the details of the falls for the end.  I had painted an under painting and adding the final frozen water was quite enjoyable.  Sammi had the painting framed at Christensen’s Fine Art.  M&D didn’t get the painting until months after the wedding, but they seemed happy with it.

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