Over a decade ago I moved to South Carolina and I took up hiking the foothills of the Blue Ridge
mountains. Fishing wasn't a high priority ant the time and fly fishing was a complete unknown. On these hikes I frequently found myself crossing the countless
freestone streams that cascaded through ancient valleys and catching brief glimpses of active native trout. It was on
one of these hikes that I ran across a fly fisherman casting to
stream raised trout. Miles from a road and framed with the
fragrantly green magnolias so common in the south, the angler made
the picture of a classic American sportsman. He was straight out of
a Winslow Homer watercolor: An Adirondack fisherman quietly alone communing with nature and casting to elusive rises. The poetic
naturalist, H. D. Thoreau couldn't have placed words together
to match the beauty of that moment for me.
I watched him from a
distance until he coxed a trout to take a dry fly then stealthily
returned to my hike. He didn't realize it, but in that quiet moment
that idyllic angler hooked two creatures with that one cast. The
next week I bought myself a cheap rod and reel setup and began my
adventure in fly fishing. It wasn't long after that I began painting
the fish I brought to hand and the rest has led me to this.
Simply put I cant get the fish off my mind. I tie flies to catch them, comb over the internet for gear to cast to them, I read about them, paint them, and have a blog and website dedicated to them. A psychiatrist might classify it as a sickness and they'd be right but its still better than the other afflictions out there.
For all you fellow sickos out there I worked up a two completely different trout this morning. Both are watercolor and ink paintings on smooth acid free Bristol paper and measure 14x11 in.
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| Rainbow #1 (12/13) |
First is the classic sketch of a rainbow trout on a drab brown background. A simple illustration of a trout in full breading colors.
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| Rainbow #2 (12/13) |
The next is yet another rainbow sketch with a bit of artistic liberty thrown into the mix. Two completely different styles of illustration of essentially the same trout. Love them or hate them, they are the product of a trout infused diseased mind. Enjoy.
Both Paintings Are For Sale
3 comments:
Joel,
Rainbow #1 is awesome.
I wonder if I could duplicate a streamer to compliment it.
Just beautiful as usual Joel.
Brk Trout - Thanks - I bet you could! Let me know if you come up with anything.
Howard - and as usual, thank you very much.
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