An Opportunity to Help Save a Waterfall

The paintings below are for sale–because in June 2011, Cummins Falls will also be up for sale. The waterfall will be for sale to real estate developers unless the Tennessee Parks and Greenways Foundation can raise the money to purchase this property. The roaring falls tumble into a 40 foot deep gorge, located on 186 acres of untouched woodland. To help keep it that way, donate to the Tennessee Parks and Greenways Foundation, or purchase one of the 7 oil paintings below, and I will donate 50% to this cause. 

Click image to enlarge

Snowy Falls - 8x10 - $325
For the full adventure behind this painting, click here!

Stillness and Motion I - 8x10 - $375

Stillness and Motion II - 6x8 - $225

The Donkey Field - 8x10 - $325

Location: Leiper's Fork, TN
For backstory on this painting, click here 

A Cow Named Squirm - 6x8 - $225

Location: Hunter's Hill Farm, Hermitage, TN

Squirm is a runt cow who is so petite she has

trouble giving birth. So now she is a full-fledged pet!

 Two Hour Parking - 5x7 - $190

Location: The Gulch, Nashville

 Upward Journey - 5x7 - $190

Location: Radnor Lake, Nashville

If you are up to an hour driving distance from me, I will deliver, or if it's more than that, we can either meet up or discuss shipping options. Contact information: lisawallacedesigns@gmail.com  615-517-1992

About the frames: 

If you like these frames, you can thank Lyle Teague Moulding in Hendersonville, TN. Lyle and Stan were excellent to work with, once again.

Adventures at Cummins Falls

Just about a week ago, another painter and I went on the toughest hike of my life, in the name of saving Cummins Falls. I have hiked in high altitudes in the Rocky Mountains, but that was nothing compared to this largely off-trail excursion lugging way too much paint and weather gear!

First I'll give a little background on the Cummins Falls situation. This huge waterfall is located on 186 acres of wooded land near Cookeville, TN. The Chestnut Group, the plein air painting group I belong to, is partnering with the Tennessee Parks and Greenways Foundation in an effort to protect this property from impending future development. The Foundation needs to raise enough money to purchase the waterfall from a private owner, or the land will go up for sale this coming June. This individual landowner had purchased the waterfall area in 2010 as part of a deal to hold the land for one year, giving Tennessee Parks and Greenways Foundation time to raise the money for purchase. The Chestnut group is sending out artists to paint the waterfall and to sell the works at a fundraiser on February 24. The more paintings we sell, the more money will go toward saving Cummins Falls.

Now to the adventure. I have never had to walk more than 15 minutes to get to my painting destination, so I'm not equipped with the most ergonomic paint gear. I normally find my gear to be light and easy to travel with. However, the day of this paint-out had a low of 8º F and a high in the 30's. (For the Europeans, 32ºF is the equivalent of 0º...freezing!!) So I took 2 extra jackets, and also extra food and water, since I knew I would be out in nature all day. We were told the hike to the bottom of the gorge would take about 30 minutes. Then we'll paint the falls. No big deal! 

So we start hiking through the woods. Pretty!

click any photo to enlarge

It's getting a little steep. But pretty!

We get to the end of the trail. We're at the edge of a river, with no waterfall in sight or in earshot. 

Ummm...where's the waterfall? Thalia, my fellow hiker, tells me we have to hike up the river–in the water–to get to the falls. She had posted this information online, but I had brilliantly missed it. She starts pulling on her thigh-high waders. I'm feeling incredibly lucky to be wearing my almost knee-high rubber boots.

Rather than wade the whole way in the river, we decide to hike along the bank. We cross to where the bank looks better for foot travel. The bottom of the river is slippery and the water is almost to my boot tops, but I make it across dry!

Some of the hiking is easy, but much of it is along muddy, sloped embankments and through dense thickets of fallen trees. Sometimes it would take 5-10 minutes for me to muscle my way through a particularly tough clump of branches, while trying to keep all my gear and jackets with me. I start getting so hot that I have to carry two coats over my arm, in addition to the easel and two tote bags.

Finally we meet our match in a large cedar tree that has fallen across a high, steep muddy bank. Since there's no way through it, we cross the river to a more passable looking area. My boots meet their match in the water, as you'll see in the video below. As I mutter to myself in the video, the frigid water rushing into my boots was actually pretty refreshing in my state of overheated fatigue! I had to be careful to keep my balance, because with each step I could feel the swift current pushing against my legs.

Video

OK, it's about 30-35ºF, and I am slogging about in boots filled with ice water. That sounds like a bad thing, but to my feet, the water is like cool, hydraulic footpads that circulate all through my boots with each step. Who needs gel soles? But obeying common sense and not sensation, I sit down and dump about a half gallon of water from each boot. Then almost immediately we find that we can't pass the far bank either, because it's so craggy and rocky. Here's a photo of that side of the river. Thalia is a tiny speck at the base of the gorge ... can you find her? 

So it's back in the water again, crossing back to the original bank. Now I have a new freedom of not having to worry about whether the water is over my boots! I'm waterlogged anyway, so I just stomp right across the river.

Now we are in a slightly less impassable boulder field. This is the hardest part of the hike. I have to muster all my strength to haul myself and my gear over each boulder, with precarious footing and numerous drop-offs to sharp rocks below. A couple of mini-avalanches erupt ahead of me, almost hitting Thalia, and both of us wonder if some animal had set it off in the cliffs above us. Every now and then I would look up at the cliffs, imagining a mountain lion staring down with interest. Yeah, I know this isn't Colorado, but I am almost delirious with exhaustion, and I decide that it wouldn't matter if a wild animal were stalking me anyway, because I'm too pooped to escape. 

Then.....we finally see the falls!! (With the help of my camera's zoom lens) It took us about 2 hours to get to this point.

The shadow of the gorge has its own local weather. The snow is about 2 inches deep, and the air is definitely colder. I'm dreadfully fatigued, with soaking wet feet, but that doesn't matter...it's time to paint the falls.

I pop in my earbuds and escape the cold and damp with the warm, sunny sounds of an African pop song. Song after song comes to my rescue, warding off the burning pain that sets into my frozen feet. I'm able to pull off a paint sketch in about 2 hours.

When I pack up and head back, I discover my feet are frozen numb and cannot be trusted on the snowy, craggy footholds. My thighs are like wobbly rubber, too. Even scarier: I discover that in my fatigue, I have lost my fear of falling. A few times when I start losing my balance, my reaction is dull apathy. It would be nice to just give in to gravity. Huh?? OK, apparently my survival instincts are useless, along with my legs, so my brain kicks in and finds a somewhat easier path. I still have obstacles, but I get over each one by sliding and scrambling on my stomach or backside. Along the way, I see a plastic bag with waders in it. Then a familiar straw hat. Then a roll of paper towels. I believe my hiking partner is losing her stuff! Or maybe this is how she marks the trail for me. I gather it  up and finally come to a point where she's waiting for me. She has my coat, which I also had lost along the way, and we exchange lost goods. I tie the coat around my waist, but somewhere along the way I lose it again. I feel like we're Hansel and Gretel, leaving a trail of debris to guide our way back.

After more boulders, mud, fallen trees, the river, and the steeply graded forest trail ... we make it back to a campfire and food! I remove my boots and entertain everyone with my wool socks and pant legs steaming in the campfire heat. Yay, mismatched socks. 

As much as I detailed the difficulties of our hike, I wouldn't trade that day for anything. The constant, strenuous exertion put me in a state of mind that lived in the moment-to-moment present. That basic kind of existence is an oasis of primitive bliss in the chaotic modern world. That's all the more reason to keep wild, rugged areas like Cummins Falls protected from encroaching civilization.

p.s. Thank you Thalia for taking so many of the pictures and the video in this post! And thanks Cathleen for the food and the "steamy" pic at the end.

Another Snow Painting

In late January Nashville got about 3 inches of snow. Snowfall does not always stick to the branches, but this time it did, creating a "winter wonderland" of frosty white woods. Foreground shapes were sharp and crystalline, and further back, they merged into an endless silvery mass. Tree trunks within that mass were soft and indistinct, as if fading into a mist.

Forest Frost - 6x8

Cabin in the Woods, Cottage in the Village

 A few weekends ago I experienced a wintery getaway in northern Tennessee. I was with a group of painters that pitched in to rent a cabin in a remote national forest. Just getting to the cabin required navigating miles of hairpin, 10 mph speed limit curves through the dense woods. It was bear country, as I could see by the presence of bear-proof garbage containers. (The containers look like squat, brown metal boxes.) 

Our group had Saturday and Sunday to paint. On Saturday morning, we painted the woods surrounding the cabin. My biggest challenge was working with the bright sunlight as it created ever changing blue shadows across the snow.

           

Big South Fork Snow - 5x7

That afternoon we drove to a river spanned by a wooden walking bridge, perfect for setting up our easels. The wind blasted us as we painted, but I barely noticed it as I basked in the beauty of the sun slanting over the hills. I can't display the art from that afternoon, because I ended up doing a Chevy Chase number on the poor little 8x10. While loading the car just before heading back, I set the painting on the trunk. I was in Mt. Juliet off I-40 when I remembered. No doubt it is now face down, coated in frost, weathering away along the shoulder of some lonely highway. R.I.P.! So, here's a photo of the scene I was painting ... I guess I can just paint it again from the comfort of my living room. 

And here we are, all set up on the walking bridge. I'm the middle distance figure on the left, in the dark pink jacket. Looks like I just cast a shot put. 

On Sunday we drove to the historic town of Rugby. I will quote a couple of lines from the town's vision statement, found on the Historic Rugby website:

British-founded Rugby, Tennessee, is a rare example of a rural, living community that survives from its 1880s utopian beginnings with its town plan intact, many buildings and its natural setting preserved and with no encroaching incompatible development. 

Sounds like a great place to paint! We set up our easels in an area where we could see several picturesque churches and cottages. I selected an adorable yellow house called Percy Cottage. It's available as a bed and breakfast in the warmer seasons.

Here's a photo of another very paintable place:

Our painting group was well received by the town. One passerby took my picture and wrote about our painting endeavors in the Rugby online newsletter. You can see the photo and blurb at this link.  The next passerby was an artist from Gatlinburg, TN. His name is Dale Gillespie, and he was visiting Rugby as a potential new location for his studio. Just before leaving, I met a couple who told me about the different art galleries in town. This little rural village apparently has a strong art community. My painting group is enthusiastically planning to visit again in April!

After wrapping up the Rugby painting, I started the drive back to Nashville. It was late afternoon; I was driving into the sun; and I was treated to hours of gorgeous, backlit country scenes. (As Saturday afternoon's painting sailed off the back of my car ...) Here are a few photos I took on the ride back. Click any photo to enlarge.

A general store and post office outside of Rugby.

A vast auto restoration lot: a sea of antique autos, gleaming metal parts, all completely deserted and unguarded. Was this place an apparition?

Next I passed a field full of horses ... all in coats. Someone is thoughtful toward these animals.

I love a cloudy sunset–you can't pay for a better show than this!

A Snowy Week

Nashville got a few inches of snow this week. Living in the South, I welcome snow as a rare treat, and I decided to savor it while it lasted by going outside and painting. Here's my painting from this past Monday. I spent about 2 or 3 hours outside, wearing LOTS of layers and constantly drinking instant café Vienna. The scene shows a stand of trees in front of the entry point to the woods behind my house. I love walking in those woods, especially when it snows.

 "Entry to the Snowy Woods" 6x8

 The next day was even colder and windier. I wore more layers, and kept refilling my mug with instant café Vienna or cocoa. My feet gave me the most problems ... tennis shoes and two pairs of socks were not enough to keep them warm. Of course, on that harsh day I had to pick a subject that was tedious to paint. I selected a zig zag tree in the woods behind my house, and took care to include all the zigs and zags. I spent 4 hours outside on this one, not counting breaks. Here's the underpainting:

The finished painting is below. I love using the palette knife to suggest little details, like the fence wires, which would be impossible for me to do with a brush. The mass at the base of the tree is the brush pile where I dump my fall rakings and branch trimmings each year. The pile always seems to stay the same size, probably because the leaves decay about as fast as I pile on new ones. 

"Snowy Woods" 6x8

Snowflakes accumulated on my palette. They kept getting mixed into the paint and not melting, giving the paint a gritty texture. It didn't seem to affect the final painting, though. (click to enlarge)

Here I am with all my layers on ... hopefully I won't catch a cold. I did have a terrible headache all day today, probably from yesterday's exertion.

The little bird in my front yard looks cold, too. 

City-fied Painting

In late November I met with a few Chestnut Group members to paint in a Nashville area called "The Gulch." I felt intimidated by the fact that cityscapes are filled with my artistic enemies: straight lines, perfect right angles, the need for flawless perspective. In order to feel safe, I picked a spot that had a comforting stand of trees in the distance. To my surprise, I ended up with a painting I'm pretty happy with. Another pleasant surprise–I had very little trouble from passersby, even though I was painting on a sidewalk. Very few people walked by, with the notable exception being an ex-army guy I will call Mr. Talkative. His chatty presence actually didn't bother me, because I like to listen to either music or talking while I paint, and my iPod battery was dead at the time. So as I learned about the life and interests of my new sidekick, I painted my first cityscape:

"Two Hour Parking" 5x7

Kevin Menck's November workshop

Day 1

I came into this workshop determined to take my painting skill to another level. I was going to wring every bit of knowledge out of Kevin that I could. I started off the workshop by simply copying him as he painted, hoping to pick up some new secret that way. The main thing I noticed is....he paints so FAST! I could barely keep up. I painted so fast I was barely aware of what colors I was mixing, and didn't have time to look at the actual landscape to judge how he was coming up with those colors. The hardest item to copy was the large tree in the near center...I just could not figure out how he was giving it volume and the feel of light passing through it. My tree was basically a big cluster of blobs. Here is the result:

Next, I painted the scene from life, rather than from Kevin's painting. I still had a hard time with the large, focal tree. I got Kevin to paint it for me. I'm still mystified at how he got it to look so....tree-ish.

Below is a photo of Kevin's assistant scrutinizing my methods.

I call this location the "donkey field," for obvious reasons. (It's in Leiper's Fork, south of Nashville.) Those burros are unbelievably mischievous. Last spring a small, brown donkey took off with a wet painting, which I had to grab out of his mouth. This fall I got my arm and hand chewed on a couple of times.

Now that we're being sidetracked by donkeys, I'll post a couple of videos to further illustrate why I call this location the "donkey field."

Then a donkey broke Kevin's easel. Just kidding...he and a workshop student were doing some adjustments to his easel. You can see my easel on the left, handmade by my dad.

Back to painting...we are still on Day 1. Again, I tried to uncover Kevin's secrets by copying his painting. Did I mention he paints very fast? I don't know how I (or he) did it, but I feel this painting really captures the evening light on the barn. Coincidentally, this painting was painted on Veteran's Day, and there's a US flag hanging in front of the barn. I created the illusion of stripes by averaging the red and shadowy white, resulting in a solid block of mauve. The mind fills in the stripes. (click picture to see more detail)

Day 2

Here's a painting that I didn't copy. I painted a barn right on the edge of town in Leiper's Fork, in walking distance of Puckett's Grocery and Leiper's Creek Gallery. I used Kevin's technique of creating feathery shapes to suggest the clusters of dead twigs on the trees. 

After a long lunch break, I decided to paint a scene that looked terribly daunting. See those wispy gray trees in front of the rust-colored trees? The crowns of those trees have no discernible edges or shadows. So, that sounds like a good scene to tackle.

First I sketch in the main masses.

Then I start addin color to each major mass. At about this point I ask for help with the gray trees.

Kevin paints directly on the canvas...doing can be a better explanation than saying. First of all, I've broken up the orange trees too much, and made them too saturated. He dulls them down a bit, and masses in the major light and shadow. Then he masses in the gray trees, darkens them at the base, and uses the handle of the brush to scrape in some trunks. You can see in the painting below how sections of the gray trees are transparent, allowing the orange trees to show through. I'm still going to need practice with this concept of ultra-simplification. Next, I painted the rest of the scene on my own, including the row of green bushes, the field, sky, and the distant area. I can't take credit for the focal tree area, but overall, this painting collaboration really captures the feel of slanting sunlight on a fall afternoon in Tennessee. I think it captures the light better than the photo, which appears too harsh and flat.

Day 3

Again, I played copycat, but this time I made sure to make plenty of comparison between the scene before my eyes and the paint on the canvas. (I was using the actual landscape for reference as much as Kevin's painting) I also spent a lot of time looking back and forth between the outdoor scene and Kevin's painting, trying to understand the way he was translating real life into little textured patches that looked just as real and three-dimensional as their outdoor counterparts. As a matter of fact, some elements of his painting, particularly the crowns of trees, looked more three-dimensional than what I'm seeing out there. My eyes perceive the trees as flat, dark silhouettes against the sky, and my tendency is to paint them that way. But Kevin interprets these flat shapes as masses with volume, and he adds subtle highlights to show the light striking from the appropriate direction, which enhances the rounded shape. So it seems like I need to paint even more than I see, to achieve convincing realism. (But at the same time I paint less than I see, because I'm averaging millions of twigs and leaves into round, scruffy shapes.)

 

On a side note, while the other students and I were painting this scene, we were standing in front of a stand of woods with a creek. Kevin told us the story of seeing a table and chairs getting set up IN the creek water, and lighting and chandeliers were hung from the trees. He found out that some residents of Leiper's Fork were setting up for an in-the-creek dinner party. At these parties, guests arrive in formal dinner attire, and sit in the chairs in the creek water, with the hems of jackets and skirts flowing in the current. They eat and drink wine late into the night, illuminated by the chandeliers in the trees. I felt like he was describing a vivid dream, and soon the mad hatter would make an appearance. But no, these creek parties are real...just one of the eccentricities of residents of this quaint little town of Leiper's Fork.

For my lunch break, I had a delicious meal from Puckett's: barbecued beef brisket, baked beans, potato salad, and blackberry cobbler. Then we headed back to the donkey field. A wind started whipping up, bringing in storm clouds and smatterings of light rain, but we kept painting until it was too dark to judge color. I didn't do any copying on this one, and I managed to get a couple of donkeys in the scene. They stopped bothering us long enough to go eat some hay.

Now the workshop is over, and I hope I will continue to apply what I have learned to future paintings.