Greetings, I had the chance to go fly fishing with my son Nathan. We got up early and went up along the Provo river near Vivien park. The darn fish were not interested in our flies no matter how we presented them. We stayed in the cold water for about an hour and a half and along with whipping the water with my fly line I watched the sunshine creep down the south end of Mt. Timpanogos and bathe the canyon in bright August light.
Nathan and I decided to try our luck further down the river so we found ourselves near the mouth of Provo canyon standing in the water below the Murdock irrigation dam and finally we ended up on an old steel bridge, where we actually could see several nice brown trout feeding lazily in the clear shallow water. Fortunately for them (and us) they could see us too so nobody got hooked. After watching the fish for a few minutes I looked up stream to the east and decided I was done fishing and needed to get painting.
I wanted to capture the sunlight bouncing off the shallow stream contrasting against the shadowed foliage. I am still enjoying the palette knife. The way it deposits the color on the canvas seems good. I am painting another view from the old bridge. I will add it to this post soon.

Sign up to win a free framed original Stephen Bartholomew oil painting.

In this second version I tried to focus in on the contrast between the highlights on the water and the shadowed cottonwoods. Today I also worked on a drawing from my trip up to Buffalo peak. It is the view from the peak looking south towards the north face of “Y” mountain. I have also been working on some ideas from my recent family camping trip to Fish Lake.