Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Maroon Bells


My dear friend Ankita made a recent trip to Colorado with her family and subsequently shared some picturesque snaps in Facebook. That's how I got to see this photograph of Maroon Bells below captured by her husband, Niladri. Since I didn't know about this place, I immediately googled "Maroon Bells" and  found lots of photographs on this heavenly site. All of them were equally amazing but I personally got hooked to this one and decided to use it for my next Landscape painting. The reflection of the rocks on the water surface in this photograph attracted me the most. I must say Niladri did a real good job in capturing the serenity of the place.


                                                         
Photo Courtesy Niladri Das

Lemme tell ya - normally, any Landscape painting with a water body makes a huge difference to it, whether it's a running stream or a quite lake.  In the case of  the running stream, the flow of  the water creates the magic but for quite water body, all that matters is the reflection. Maroon bells is widely popular  among artists for the reflection of these peaks. Normally Artists use the wind effect on water surface to differentiate the reflections  from the real objects and I must admit that's not a very easy job. But the photograph Niladri took is with calm reflections just creating a perfect  mirror image. Only difference is the presence of rocks on the water surface which according to me is the key to differentiate real objects from the reflections. Only thing I have changed in the painting is adding fall colors to the mountains.

Thank you Ankita and Niladri for this awesome snap.



                                                                       "Maroon Bells"
                                                              Acrylic on Canvas ( 18" x 24" )