Okanogan Mountain Stream

"Okanogan Mountain Stream"

9x12 acrylic on canvas

Available through DPW gallery/auction

I participate in an assortment of challenges from time to time, when life isn't busy sending me in different directions! One such challenge is with a small, private, intimate group of FB friends that just create art because the LOVE to! Isn't that a wonderful way to approach art - because you LOVE it! 

They do weekly challenges which I can't really keep up with, but I do jump in occasionally (and will try to do so with more frequency). This was posted by one of the members - a photo she took in Okanogan Washington. A beautiful part the country that I haven't visited -- yet. The northwest is definitely on my to-do list one day!

Of course, I had to embellish the scene with more color. And that was partly because I chose to experiment a bit with Golden acrylics. I've had a starter tube set for a while now, and kept meaning to work with them. This challenge (and I like to make challenges a challenge) seemed a good fit - so this is done with the Golden acrylics that have a longer drying time than regular acrylics, and also done with a limited palette (the starter kit only had roughly 6 colors in it, including white & black). The blue was ultramarine blue, which is probably my least favorite blue to work with. It was a struggle for me, but I persevered! To be honest, I didn't not find a great difference in using the Golden acrylics - in fact I found them to be a bit loose in consistency. I love working with Liquitex Heavy Body - it's what I have the most of. (although I do try other brands of acrylics & like some, and dislike some. I should probably do a blog post on the ones I've tried, the one's I like, and the one's I don't).

My original painted version was too dark across that band of trees that cuts across the canvas. And after it was pointed out by a fellow artist (so nice to have extra eyes), I went back to adjust things a bit. I didn't want that dark band to stand out - but I also didn't want it to jump forward either. A few touches of a nice gray seemed to give me what I needed. After that, I added some light yellow-green highlights to the foreground trees so they would pop more.

I'm happy with this painting now. It is available through my DPW paintworks gallery and is currently an active auction.