Got all the mountains done! …besides those few sitting on the far horizon which I'm looking forward to. Though those mountains will only take a minute to complete, It's amazing to think that I am forming entire mountains with a few strokes! Today while I was completing the far jungle trees, it kept dawning on me over and over—like my brain was getting a pleasant massage—that I was moving from one tree to the next in a matter of seconds. Why am I geeking out over this? Perhaps because of the extreme contrast from working on the up close foreground to something that requires a fraction of the detail I've been applying. Not only that but the tiny image space I'm covering represents so much more than the small physical section of cliff that takes up a good portion of the composition.   

The Waterfall

Anyone that knows me likely knows that I love waterfalls—possibly a little obsessively. Creating this waterfall was so much fun. Thinking hard, I'm not sure if I've ever included a waterfall in my various artworks over the years—it seems like I have but never to this degree of prominence. Amidst the joy of painting in something I love I kept asking myself, why haven't I been doing waterfalls all the time?! This thought brought to memory of a environmental concept artist—I regrettably don't remember his name because this was years ago—who loved painting bridges into his scenes. I would watch the creation of his artwork and he'd narrate as it went. There would usually be a large structure on a distant hill, and there was one time when he began to talk about how much he likes putting them in—it seemed as if he was pleased by this mysterious attachment to bridges. They are pretty cool; If they are drawn against a bright backdrop—such as the sky for instance—they create a powerful focal point because the bridge's arch creates a rare opportunity to trap a section of and shape that strongly contrasting backdrop. Waterfalls are similar in that they are often the brightest thing in the scene. So all of this had me imagining myself in his shoes talking about how I love to paint waterfalls.  

From Nature to Structure

Other than the sky and those fun little distant mountains, all I have left is the metal surface. I'm going to try my best NOT to cram in as much detail as I can as the strong contrast of its simplicity currently works very well at drawing in attention. Generally, I'd think you'd want the focal point to have the most detail because that's where you want to hold their interest, but I'm going to have to compromise. I think I try to have small spots of extra detail along the surface rather than an even spread which apparently is very difficult for me. I honestly can't wait to see how it'll turn out!