painting of Rackets Creek

This represents a more serious effort on my part with a painting that took over 6 weeks to complete. This is far more detailed and involved than my past efforts. I like the colors better than my previous landscape, and the only real struggle I had was painting the water because the photos were grainy and I couldn't clearly see the details of the water reflection and the rocks underneath. Overall I'm happy and tired- not used to having the patience that it requires to do something this big and detailed. At the last moment I added the foilage to the bottom left to balance out the composition- and to hide the lack of detail in that area. I also emprovised a lot on this painting and simply used all my "tricks" whereas in the past I had placed certain requirements on how I would paint. Several areas were repainted and this was the first time I have ever added something in after I was done.

Fishing on Thompson

I must say that the Thompson River absolutely, positively kicked my butt yesterday. By the time I got out of there my feet hurt, my back hurt, my neck hurt, my rear-end hurt and my knees hurt. OK I'm old but that is beside the point. That place is as rough as it is beautiful- and there are no trails by the river- you're on your own. Wayne and I fished from daylight til 2:30 all the way up to the big waterfall, and the farther you go the rougher it gets. By the time you make it to the falls you're doing more climbing than walking- which isn't so bad. The bad part is walking/wading/climbing back out! It took us 1:15 minutes just to walk outta there. Then we took a 30 minute break to eat and drink and we hiked down into the south Carolina side of the river and fished almost til dark. Gluttons for punishment- well I'm paying for it today. But it was a great day for fishing- and was well worth the trip- but I still dread that walk out.

The top group shows the first set of falls in the distance. The middle two photos are from the top of the falls looking back down the river and the last photo is of the big falls. The bottom photo is a section of river somewhere between the two falls. As you can see in the photos the banks are steep and rocky and the water is fast. Occasionally you have to climb some areas your mom or wife wouldn't want to know about- but thats fishing- just make sure you have a friend with you.