The Hudson River School, and My Collage for LMAC #112

Doing a Flip

When I saw @shaka's picture this week it took me back. The picture was so beautiful and evocative, I didn't want to ruin it.

I had to create something that built upon the natural scene in the photo. As a matter of fact, the first thing I did was remove all the camping equipment in the background. Then I enhanced the green and wood elements to camouflage where the campers had been.

I was very happy with that result. The scene looked familiar. As I have mentioned before on this blog, I grew up in the foothills of the Shawangunk Mountains. This range is sort of a junior member of the Appalachian chain. My family left the area when I was eleven.

Appalachian Mountain Range
Physical World Map

Credit: CIA. Public domain.

If you look at the map above, you'll note the Appalachian range running parallel to the East Coast of the U. S. If you look more closely, at New York, on the east side of Appalachians, you'll get an idea of where I grew up.

While the Appalachians are not the tallest mountains in the world, they are among the oldest. It is estimated they are four times older than the Rockies. They are older than the Alps, the Himalayas and the Andes. The oldest mountain range in the world is in fact found in South Africa, the Barberton Greenstone Belt. That range is believed to be 3,600,000,000 years old.

The area around the Shawangunks, where I grew up, is so beautiful that a significant art movement is associated with the environs: The Hudson River School.

Landscape with Haywain, Worthington Whittredge (Hudson River School)

Cleveland Museum of Art. Public domain

Worthington Whittredge would return to the Gunks (short for Shawangunks) every year and paint the local scene, including dramatic Hudson River vistas.

A Rocky Glenn, Thomas Cole (Founder, Hudson River School)

Credit:Amon Carter Museum of American Art Public domain

Thomas Cole painted most of his pieces in the Catskill Mountains, which are part of the Appalachians but a bit north of the Gunks. Only twice is he believed to have painted in the Gunks. The picture above is one of two pieces that highlight scenery from the Shawangunks.

The Shawangunk Mountains, Sanford Robinson Gifford (Hudson River School)

Image credit:Pinterest. Public domain

Sanford Robinson Gifford and Worthington Whittredge were the two painters in the Hudson River School who returned regularly to paint scenes of the Gunks.

As you look at the paintings featured here, you might begin to understand why I catch my breath when I see scenes of my old haunts. Here's an actual photo that gives you an idea of what my 'playground' looked like all those years ago (it is not a photo of exactly where I lived).

Abandoned Cabin at Sam's Point Preserve, Shawangunk Mountains

Image credit: Coasterlover1994. Used under CC 4.0 license.

The interesting part of this picture is, there actually was an abandoned cabin in the woods near my home. We used to go there to collect comic books. Someone had left an enormous collection of moldy, damp comics. One of the mysteries from those days: Who lived there and who accumulated all that neglected reading material?

My Collage
I'll start by showing three alternate versions of this collage. The one at the top of the page seemed the most successful of the four, but I really can't tell which I like best.

Petting the Catdog

Random Runner

Dancing Sticks

I want to credit my LMAC colleagues who made this collage possible. The face on my stick figures came from the photo of a donkey by @muelli. He contributed the picture to #LIL, our image gallery.

Most of the flowers you see decorating my collages came from a photo provided by @mariale07 to LIL. I used the one flower at the center of her picture and from that created many.

Some of the flowers in my collage came from a drawing I contributed to LIL a while ago. And, the two fantasy creatures (on the log and climbing the tree in the background) also were drawings I contributed some time ago.

The catdog, in the lower right hand corner, was made from two pictures I had contributed to LIL. The head belongs to a dog, and the body to a cat.

The stick (for stickperson) is due to be listed in the gallery any day now. It was posted in my last LIL blog:

I thank @mballesteros, an esteemed LMAC Team colleague, for giving me the inspiration to create a lively a figure from that stick.

I ran a few of the elements through different Lunapic filters as I assembled the collages. For resizing, coloring, making frames I used Paint3D, Paint and Gimp

LIL and LMAC
LMAC, and its offshoot LIL, are brainchild's of our community founder and leader, @shaka.

In LMAC we invite everyone on the Hive platform to join us weekly and make a collage. If you check out our community page you will see how many Hiveans exercise their creative selves by making a collage. There are artists, and then there are people like me, who participate because they love to create. I do not compete in the contest. I simple am addicted to the art experience. Rules and regulations for participation may be found here.

#LIL is a rapidly growing image library that is unique to Hive. We invite all bloggers to contribute to the library and we invite everyone on the platform to borrow from the library. Rules and regulations may be found here.

Thank You
One of the goals of the community is to induce everyone to make a collage. As you can see from my blog today, making one collage is often not enough, because it is so much fun. Other members of the community also sometimes make several collages, not to win a prize but for the sheer pleasure of it. Thank you @shaka for giving us this. Thank you for the opportunity you offer everyone to create, to win prizes and to be part of a community.

I thank every member of the community for making LMAC vibrant with your art. I thank especially @quantumg for the work he does to make our image library a well-oiled machine. Lily, our librarian bot, is a wonder.

Thank you for reading my blog
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