Lower Calf Creek Falls (Escalante National Monument, Utah)

We are really having a gorgeous autumn with the leaf colours. I think the fine weather in the earlier part of this month really enabled the trees to show their best hues. It also helped that the rain started later in the month so as not to knock everything off into the gutters below in a mucky brown mess. I shall get about doing some autumn paintings very soon.

This painting has nothing to do with leaves but I thought I would post it since it is what I have been working on lately. It is "Lower Calf Creek Falls" in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. A spring somewhere seven miles distant, provides this flow of water that makes it way down through the desert, eventually dropping 126 feet over the sandstone cliff edge. You can't see the falls until the very last step of your hike. You turn the bend and there it is, in all its cool emerald and honey-toned glory. The heat from the canyon does not enter here as the finest mist, more felt than seen, blows through the shady cottonwoods that surround the falls.

 

The pool of water is fuh-reezing in a scream-in-your-head kind of way, but still a delicious swim after a hot 5.5 mile hot hike through hot sand and hot rock in hot air.

Comments

[Lee]

From your painting it looks like it was worth the hike. Like the way you didn't do a traditional representation of water falling. By the way, freezing water makes me scream outside my head.

[Ken]

Oh wow, the falls look spectacular, great masking job, tons of energy in it!

[sue]

what a wonderful palette; your choice of colours is spot on as always. As soonas I saw this painting I was right there.

[Susan]

I agree Lee that I love the way you chose to paint the water. Beautiful! I love the colours of the pool - I can feel the freezing water.

[michael werneburg]

The textures and shapes are perfect, but it's the use of the shading that is astonishing; so simple yet so effective. Even the small details of the calcium(?) stains!

[spinyurchin]

Lee: Hahha! Bah! Outside the head is for wussies!

Ken: Thank you and they were something purtty!

Thanks Sue. I had fun doing the green algae. :)

Susan, thank you but that water was like...like...like swimming in.. NOVA SCOTIA!

Michael: Nothing sneaks past you Mr. Geologist. Yeah, some kind of mineral leach. Not, like, leeches. That would have been gross and scary. Thank you for your kind words regarding the painting. It was a tricky one to do.

[Krista Meister]

Don't you just love those unexpected surprises when you turn the bend? I can just imagine the beauty of it all. And you are much braver than I to attempt a swim! Kind of like the scorpion thing...

[Renate]

A few brushstrokes and I can feel the water cascading - beautiful.

[Helmut]

Great way to show the pool at the bottom of the waterfall. Very nice contrast between hot rocks at top and cool water at bottom.

[reesan]

wow. how tranquil. i feel like i am there!

[Christina Baird]

Your art is beautiful - it has a unique look. A lot of movement.

[spinyurchin]

reesan: It was very tranquil and an amazing thing to see deep in the burning hot desert.

Christina: Thanks girl! I'm glad you like it.

[spinyurchin]

Krista: It was definitely a jump-in-with-all-clothes-on thing before your brain could tell you, "Nononono!"

Thank you Renate!

Thanks Helmut. That was what I was trying for indeed.

[Sue VI]

I've just come back to this one (I posted on the 21st) after painting my version and I look at yours and then at mine and, well, sigh!
How DO you do what you do SO well :)

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