"Spring Rains" Oil Painting by Barbara Hall Blumer

"Spring Rains"

by Barbara Hall Blumer

16 x 12" Oil Painting

This is my first waterfall painting. 

Tom and I took a walk four years ago along the Outlet Trail, an old six mile canal, between Keuka and Seneca Lakes. The water drains from one lake into the other, flowing downhill. Mills used to line it to take advantage of the water flow for their waterwheels which turned the stones to grind crops into flour. The old towpath/railroad bed is now the trail. There is a delightful waterfall called Seneca Mills Falls. You can park midway and walk up to the falls without walking the whole trail. In the spring, the water flows rapidly and is very forceful. It is exciting to get so close to it.

When I started "Spring Rains" three years ago, I thought let’s paint a waterfall, I’ve never done that! How fun! Also in an effort to design something a little different, I made it a vertical instead of a horizontal landscape and included the big stones of the foreground which is usually not part of a waterfall painting. And those big rocks! I have never painted rocks before either! Even more fun!

a photo after first session March 31, 2023

Well, those rocks take up almost half the painting. Which I really didn’t think about when I started. I was thinking more about the layers of the waterfall. 

In nature they serve as a barrier to keep you from the falls, and the same is true for the painting. I had to figure out how to get your eye to move through them to the waterfall and back into space up to the sky.

 
So lots of trial and error between now and then, to make the rocks believable and the waterfall look like it is cascading.

Sometimes a painting takes a long time to finish.  It takes persistence and problem solving. 

So here it is three years later. My favorite part to paint was the sky... and the upper part of the falls.

 

---Barbara

Comments and inquiries: BarbBlumer@gmail.com

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