Snoqualmie at South Fork Mouth

In trying to be on the South Fork from source to mouth this year I had to figure out how to fish the lowest stretches of the river.   I tried an approach that failed through the Three Rivers Natural Area and finally in late summer settled on parking on the main Snoqualmie off Reining Road and wading across the main stem of the river to access the South Fork’s mouth.  This is the view from wading across river just above the mouth, with Mt. Si in the background.   For all the work getting there the fishing in the very lowest reaches of the South Fork wasn’t all that great and I ended up spending a part of the day on the North Fork too.

Had a bit of a hard time getting started on this one today and am not totally happy with it.  It is the last of the South Fork related paintings I’m doing for the challenge.  Only three pieces left to do!

South Fork Picnic Area

I’m continuing on the South Fork, trying to get a painting out of most of the areas I explored this year.   This one is from Ollalie State Park off Exit 38 at the South Fork Picnic Area.   In the background you can see part of the rock walls that make up the Exit 38 climbing area which used to be one of my rock playgrounds.  This area was a great place to fish in early summer, the water was crystal clear, the wading pretty easy and the cutthroat more than willing to come grab a kebari.   I probably made a few trips to this part of Ollalie State Park and also fished the Far Side area and the water just under the main climbing wall parking lot.

I had done this painting in oils during my “training” period before the actual challenge started but wanted to re-do it in acrylic for the show.   Only 4 to go, in the final miles of this painting marathon. As of today though I have been painting for a solid month since I did four pieces before I picked up my canvases to get back in the groove.  I still need to get the backs of the canvases all filled out with title, materials and a link to the blog and will do that on a rainy day this week.

South Fork at Exit 32

Another South Fork painting from my year exploring the river.  This is a spot that I’ve fished on this river for years and was the primary spot I would go to for the last several seasons before I decided to branch out this year.  This season I fished this water about a half dozen times and also used it as a good spot to teach new tenkara anglers since there is a good beach area to teach casting at which also holds some nice cutthroat.

This scene is also the basis for my Northwest Tenkara logo.  I started with the same photo then posterized it in Adobe Elements, reduced the colors more and did some hand tweaking.   Finally I added the border and the tenkara テ.  

Only 5 paintings left to do!   I think there are two more that will be of the South Fork to cover a few more sections of the river.

South Fork under Mt. Si

The third painting of my South Fork adventures this year, this time a run of the river in North Bend that has a great view of the rocky face of Mt. Si.   This little spot between two pretty busy roads in North Bend became one of my favorite stretches of the South Fork from late August until early October.  I caught some of my best cutthroat on the river just around the corner from this view in a run that was perfect for swinging kebari with a tenkara rod.

Getting down to the wire in the challenge, only six canvases left.  I had a hard time getting motivated this morning to start painting but once I got going I got into it and lost track of a few hours while I was working on it.

Yakima at Umtanum

Back to the canyon for today’s painting.  This stretch above the Umtanum parking area is one of my favorite spots to fish in the canyon and usually is where I’ll start my day.  I like the view looking downriver to the bridge crossing that gives access to the Umtanum Canyon hiking trails.   This was from my last trip over to the river in early October and, yes, I managed to catch some nice trout on tenkara in the run I used to nymph fish.

I think this is one of the better Yakima canyon paintings in the challenge so far.  I used a lot of lighter washes to get the hills to look better than the heavier paint I had used in the earlier pieces.   Getting down to the wire now, only a week left to paint!

My new signature stamp

With only eight painting days left of the 30-Day Challenge I knew I had to make a decision – to sign or not to sign.   I used to always sign my paintings with “T.Harris” but a few years ago after seeing the Richter show I stopped signing my work on the front.   Plus, with small canvases I didn’t want to try and write my old signature, it would take up too much space.  What to do?

Catherine suggested I come up with a stamp.  I had thought previously about signing in katakana since I had planned to do all the paintings based on my tenkara adventures and I thought it would be cool to have the tenkara テ in there.   Today I played around with a few options.  I could do basically my initials in katakana which would be テハ, basically Ti-Ha, close to my old email address at Microsoft.   Or, I could do my first name in katakana – ティム.  

I also thought about Catherine’s stamp idea.  One of my painting instructors at the Academy was Milo Duke who had a cool stamp-like signature with a stylized M and D.   I checked out the paintings of his we had at the house and decided to try something similar.  I did a few sketches and finally got one I liked.   After running all the ideas by Catherine I decided to go with the stamp and today finally signed all the work I had done.   Now to start adding all the info on the back of the panels and finish the last paintings, drop off is only 10 days away.

Source Lake

This year I had a quest to fish the length of the South Fork or at least most of it.   I had fished most of the middle section of water but still hadn’t made it to the headwaters or the mouth.   In early September, Catherine and I did the 2.5 mile hike up from Snoqualmie Pass to the headwaters of the South Fork at Source Lake.   The hike doesn’t actually end at the small lake but above it with a  great view of the lake and the Cascades receding to the horizon.  This is the view from the trail’s end.

I finally think I’m getting a better feel for acrylics now that the challenge is about over.  There are definitely parts of this piece I’m really happy with and I finally think I got the receding colors correct.   I tried a slightly different technique of some washes that then built up a bit more on this painting and will probably continue this way for the remaining eight paintings.

Middle Fork at Pratt Confluence

On a very nice day in June Catherine and I headed out the potholed Middle Fork Road to hike along the Middle Fork to the Pratt River confluence.   This was one of my first hikes after my injury and it was great to be out in the mountains.  We chose this hike since it is relatively flat, more or less following the Middle Fork downstream to the Pratt River.   Of course, once we got to the Pratt I had to get out and fish, I’d packed my tenkara rod along.   I did manage to get some small cutthroat in this section of water and it was to be my last visit of the year that far up the fork.

This one gave me a bit of grief.  The mountains in the background kept being too dark so finally I tried a wash of a light mix of ultramarine, burnt umber and white and then mixed it in to the under layer, it more or less worked.   Acrylic is difficult at times since it dries darker than it is wet, hard to touch up and get the color right.

Freestone Lake

The Freestone Inn at Wilson Ranch is a place that our family has been going to for over a decade.  Each year Catherine and I rent a small cabin along Early Winters Creek for 4-5 days and spend our time hiking and, of course, I fish.  Each August we rent the Steelhead Lodge home and have the entire family up for a week on the lake.   This year we had a lot of gray skies with rain and fog instead of the usual crystal clear blue.

This is the view from the far end of the lake, a spot that Cadence liked to fish from because she could get out on the rocks and to the deep water where the bigger trout were cruising around.   The main inn is straight down the lake from these rocks.  The photo actually had Cadence fishing but after my runner issues yesterday I didn’t want to chance another figure and mess the painting up.   I did this one in acrylic as I will do all the rest of the paintings, only 10 to go!