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| The Pine Creek arm of Manatawny Creek in Berks County, Pennsylvania. Not too far away from where yours truly grew up (District Township). My grandparents' creek, just in front of the house, looked very much like this. Unless heavy rains turned it into a raging river for a few days. It could, and did, sweep away cars. Remind me to tell you about that sometime |
Well, Sir. I've got the creek sections and a long, narrow pond roughly penciled in on the cheap, pres-stretched and pre-gessoed pre-stretched canvases that were purchased a few days ago. Painting will begin this evening with dark brown brushed onto the center of each section to suggest depth.
If that goes well, I'll proceed with blending in lighter brown and muted greenish-brown on either side of that along the banks, which will be suggested with some Woodland Scenics materials later.
Why the brown and not blue? Well, at my grandparents' place, where I spent most of my formative years, we had a creek just in front of the house that was 7' to 15' wide with a couple of trout pools where Rainbow, Brown, and Brook Trout hung out plus crayfish, Box Turtles and even the occasional non-poisonous water snake. Snapping Turtles, Copperheads, and the Cotton Mouths showed up now and again too although we didn't see those much. The depth of "the stream," as my grandmother referred to it, ranged from 10" to 24" depending on the season and rains.
Most important, even on bright sunny days, thanks to its sandy silty bottom, our babbling brook had a brown
color about it. The water was crystal clear and COLD, but it did not
appear blue even from a distance. Same thing for the both ponds up the
road at neighboring Mrs. Conrad's place and around the corner at the McCarty's where my
sister and I took horseback riding lessons for a number of years.
Note the borrowed photograph at the top of this post. My own model creek sections and pond will be various blended browns with some green mixed in and a coat or two of acrylic gloss varnish. I aim to keep these fairly flat and flush with the tabletop. That's the general plan at any rate. We'll see how things progress.
Stay tuned!
-- Stokes
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