Glen Falls, Before the Rain

Glen Falls, Before the Rain
Acrylic on Gessobord
8"x10"
Chris Breier © 2016

I sketched this scene in my pocket sketchbook, and then returned a few weeks later to paint an acrylic version of it. Most of the painting was completed onsite but I finished it in my studio because it started to drizzle, water-based paints don't work so well in the rain.

A common painting technique is to tone the board with a color to eliminate the pure white, which makes it easier to judge the colors. For this painting, I used a wash of Quinacridone Nickel Azo Gold. Some of it shows through in the finished painting on the left side of the waterfall.

The majority of the outdoor painting session was a struggle but that's how it often goes. If painting were easy, it would be boring! What's interesting is that I can't see any of the struggle in the finished painting, it looks like my other paintings.

A few people stopped by to see what I was working on, one of them must have been a painter because he guessed that I was using acrylics. After a couple of hours, the sun disappeared behind the clouds and then it was a matter of time before it started to drizzle. The original painting is for sale.

I have also painted The Pond at Glen Falls, part of the gravel path at Glen Park,  Autumn trees at glen Park, and  another painting of the waterfall.