Raging River Bridge No.1008E, version 3

Raging River Bridge No. 1008E, version 3.
Acrylic on canvas. 16" x 20".

Another view of the bridge, standing downstream on the north west shore, looking up at the bridge with a lot of interesting reflections bouncing off the water, illuminating the underside of the bridge. To get this shot I had to slide down a steep clay hillside off the end of the bridge, and walk through a dry creek bed. Later I discovered I had been tramping on private property. Oops.

This time I tried drawing my guidelines on the canvas using a medium blue dry pastel, and this worked well. Any lines I didn't want were "erased" by brushing over them with a dry brush. The rest of the lines disappeared as I applied thin washes of paint.

I thought my focus would continue to be the trees, but the reflections bouncing all over were too enticing.
I will probably fiddle with this a bit more after I step away from it for a while. There are areas I think are weak and need to be resolved- some of the reflections around the large boulders aren't reading correctly to me; some of the boulders need to be tweeked and the stand of alders in the distance are disappointing.  They are just too vague.

Raging River Bridge No.1008E, version 2

Raging River Bridge No. 1008E, version 2.
Acrylic on canvas. 11" x 14".

Another view of the bridge, standing on the south upstream side, down on the river bed. The water level is very low this time of year, exposing rocks. Some of the rocks were clearly cut and set in place, others are naturally occurring, worn smooth from the action of the water.

On this painting I made a point of putting away all the smaller detail brushes I normally reach for, and started with relatively large, coarse brushes. I had a couple objectives. I want to improve my skill rendering trees and foliage in a more convincing manner, and push to work "looser", making use of directional brush strokes.

While the photo I took looked fine, I found this a difficult composition to work with. The centered bridge immediately dominated the canvas. At one point I had a lot of detail on the bridge mass, but found that created a discord with the rest of the image. It did not make sense to have extreme detail on an object further back. In the end I scrubbed most of it out and let it go soft focus again. I'm afraid I ended up overworking everything, and it lost some spontaneity.

I am pleased with the handling of the trees and foliage. These are looking softer and more impressionistic than previous attempts.
I'm dissapointed with how I handled the rocks in the foreground, but at a loss at what to change.

Raging River Bridge No.1008E

Raging River Bridge No. 1008E
Acrylic on canvas. 11" x 14".

This bridge is about a mile and a half down the road from my place. I stopped by the other day and toured around it with my camera. Ended up becoming obsessed with the bridge and had to paint it.

The bridge was completed in 1915 on was was then called the Sunset Highway, the road from Seattle over Snoqualmie Pass and all points east. It was also referred to as "the Yellowstone Trail" by early promoters in the area, although following the road east did not directly end up at Yellowstone.
Years later this two lane circuitous road to the pass was replaced by a straighter route a few miles to the south; interstate 90 in use today.

After 1940, this section of the former Sunset Highway became a local access road between two small towns. The road was straightened at some point, leaving the old bridge marooned on what became a side road which dead ends shortly after the bridge. A road and bridge to nowhere.
It doesn't look like much from the road bed, but has a very elegant early art-deco look from the side, standing below by the river.

Cat 51

Cat 51, Cat on a Blanket
Acrylic on canvas. 16" x 20".

I approached this painting with the thought of keeping it "soft", consciously staying away from hard edges. And promptly violated that by introducing a tiled floor in the foreground. I liked the tiles but they really didn't fit with my objective, so I scrubbed and scrapped most of the paint off, and added in the blanket. I like the contrast of the sharper blanket edge with the rest of the image softer.

I've been thinking about my vision, having been recently diagnosed with pre-glaucoma stage symptoms, a condition inherited from my mother who has since gone blind. I'm noticing my paintings tend towards hard edges, maybe compensation for the world appearing a bit blurry?

I had terrible vision as a child. Being fairly well behaved through school, my seating assignments were towards the back of the classroom whereas the troublemakers were placed in the front where the teacher could keep a better eye on them. By age seven I recall puzzling over what the teacher was writing on the chalkboard at the front of the room- it was usually a pleasant blur. That's about the same time my grades in most subjects began to suffer noticeably. Mom used to constantly admonish me, "STOP SQUINTING!", but it wasn't until I was eleven that an official eye exam revealed that I couldn't make out details past a foot or so from my face.