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Day 46 of the 50 Day painting challenge - Where the Water Runs Rapid - by George De Chiara

Where the Water Runs Rapid

 Today I painted one of my favorite subjects, white water rapids! It seems like it's been forever since I've done one. I'm not really sure why I've had the lapse, but today I put an end to it. I shuffled through my photo references of scenes like this till I found one that I wanted to paint. This scene is from Medicine Park, OK. My wife and spent a week there a few years ago and had a great time hiking around the trials and sight seeing. We took a hike called the 40 Foot Hole Trail, which follows a river for about a mile and a half and is full of scenery like this. Ultimately, the trails ends at a 40 foot hole at the bottom of the river, which is created from the waterfalls pounding down. Now, I'll be honest, I'm not sure if we ever found the hole or not. It's not very clearly marked which waterfall supposedly caused this, but with a digital card full of images like this one I really didn't care.

Below is how today's painting came to life. I don't have a lot of images for this one. I was short of time today and painted as fast as I could and often forgot to stop and take photographs. This was one of those paintings that fell off the brush and when you are there to just catch the paint, it's best not to stop.

This image is taken at the end of my rough block-in. The paint is not quite as thinned out as I normally use for a block-in, but it's not thick either. There isn't any white paint used up to this point. All of the lighter shades are either done with turpentine to thin the paint or a paper towel to wipe the paint off leaving just a stain of light color. When I paint from this point on, I want to try to preserve as much of this under painting as possible, because I think it will help give the rocks and water subtle layers of color and interest.

Now I've started to add white paint into my color mixtures and almost no turpentine. This makes the paint very dry, so when I drag it across the canvas, it leaves little spots where the background colors come through. The effect is most notable in the rocks as they progress. At this point, all I've worked on is the water. Once I'm happy with how the water looks, I'll move on to cleaning up the rocks, giving them more interest and color. I'll mix the colors for the rocks in the same dry fashion I did for the water. It's kind of ironic, but when painting very wet rushing water I like to use mostly dry slow brush strokes. Weird, huh?

The finished painting.

Where the Water Runs Rapid

Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 6x6 inches on canvas panel. 
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: Click here to bid.

Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.

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