This is one of two paintings I have finished this week and I am especially fond of it. I had challenged myself to paint underwater rocks as realistically as I could as well as the other river rocks and the opposite shore. The painting itself was fun and I really enjoyed painting the rocks. The hardest part for me was painting the vegetation on the far bank. I didn't want to paint each bush but find it difficult to paint loosely and without more definition. The soil is a pinkish red gravelly sandstone with lots of intermittent white bands and splotches. It proved to be the most challenging part of the painting before I was satisfied with the effect.
The Popo Agie River's headwaters are in the Wind River Range in Wyoming. At The Sinks the river rushes into a very rocky cavern and goes underground; a quarter of a mile down the mountain, at The Rise, it re-emerges and that deep pool is almost black with trout. The view in this painting is down on the flatter terrain of the Middle Popo Agie where a man I met at the turn off took me to this spot. He leads fly fishing workshops and explained some of the basics to me. What I carried away - in addition to my photographs - was his explanation of fly fishing as a skill, an art, and a passion. Watching hin practice his passion was seeing art in motion.
