Desert Reeds

I spent a good while trying to think of what I could possibly name this. So of course I go with the most boring name possible. I mean, yeesh, this isn't even technically a desert.

So while driving to college, we were passing by a lot of this dry, vacant countryside landscape. I had been thinking that a great deal of my paintings have been awfully green. So, I wanted to paint a landscape that didn't include very much green but still looked pretty. I didn't have a camera out at the time, but I saw this one pretty section with this little island of reeds sticking up out of a river thing. I thought it was pretty and apparently managed to commit it to memory.

Yes, that means I painted this without a reference picture. Be proud. I'm actually surprised this managed to turn out so well. Usually when I get a mental image of something, the painting or drawing looks nothing like what I imagined. The other problem with drawing from memory is that I tend to have the memory of a fish and don't remember things like this pretty little spot unless I have a picture of it. So, I managed to do a full, detailed landscape from memory, which is really nice for me.

The acrylic paints I brought with me to college are... Kinda cheap... Comes from being a poor college student. So they don't really hold much thickness or rich color to them. I noticed this whil doing my last painting, but I was even more aware of it while doing this one. The only successful way to paint with them is to treat them more like water colors. This is why the whole picture has a very watercolor like feel, even though they were done with acrylic paint.

And, yeah. That's pretty much all I have to say about this. I would guess this took me about 6 hours or so.