Attempting to Paint a Waterfall

Nan and I stopped at a local waterfall in December 2023 coming home from breakfast. She’s been into painting waterfalls and wanted this scene. I decided to try a waterfall scene myself as I’ve never done one. They always look too complicated.

I always take many pictures, different angles and such. I edited a few and chose a couple to work with. However, when it came to doing the initial sketches, I was at a loss. I prefer to do my sketching freehand, but somehow, even with working the Rule of Thirds, I get mixed up with the horizontal ground lines working downhill when there’s a lot of busy-ness.

I tried using the projector. I could not seem to get it to a size I want. It ended up bigger than I wanted. I tried to work it but kept getting mixed up as to which spot I was trying to do from photo to the sketch layout. I gave up.

Over a month went by and the scene began calling me again. Today, I decided to give it another go starting from the beginning. This time, I decided to trace. I printed 8 x 10 copies of two scenes after re-editing and cropping further. Then I chose white BFK Rives paper cut to a size I’ll be comfortable with and began tracing.

Got them both done. So far so good. Next, I set up on the table to make better lines with a charcoal pencil. I again started getting confused. I got out a blue pastel pencil to differentiate between water and land. It took a while, but I eventually got both sketches done. Phew, a lot of work.

Took them to the studio and taped both to the stand-up easel. One measures 8 ¼ x 10, the other will be 9 ½ x 8 ½. I’ll probably work both at the same time. ‘Course, that may change when I really get into it, ha-ha. I took black pan pastel and put in a little behind-the-trees darkness on one to see how it’s going to look. 

It’s a start.