River-Eye View

Oil on Board, 14 x 20 inches

I produced this river-eye view from some reference material I gathered at the end of September - hence the extraordinarily, cunningingly engineered title. 

I've painted this viewpoint of my local river on many occasions, but I wanted something different, so risking life and limb, I clambered down through the vegetation, off came the shoes and I slid into  the beautifully crystal clear water and waded across until I got the view I wanted, looking straight into the sunlight, so that the reeds growing in the middle of the water were dazzlingly lit. I loved the way the light caught that one leaf of the Himalayan Balsam in the foreground as I looked up at it, lighting its underside so that it appeared bright yellow-green.  Little things please me!

I do love these tricky exercises in tone observation; the sky reflections in the water appear very bright, but have a bluish tinge, and are a tone down from the piercingly bright sunlight reflecting off those dazzling reeds.  As I've said before, no paint is adequate to simulate pure sunlight brightness, so you just have to try a few tricks to get as near as you can to fool the eye of the viewer.  Did I?

As it was my Birthday on the 3rd and virtually ALL of you failed to shower me with cards and presents, I thought I would mention it now, at a discreet two days down the line.  It would have been crass for me to have mentioned it on the day, because you all would have sent the interweb into meltdown - I'm considerate like that.