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

in #hive-1746953 years ago

Doing a Flip
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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.

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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.

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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
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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)
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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)
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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)
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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
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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
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Random Runner
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Dancing Sticks
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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.

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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.
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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:
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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

Hive on


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This is so beautiful, wow! The research and thought put into this. Brilliant💜

Thank you so much, @queenstarr. I do love writing, and I love writing about nature. Science and art also. Actually, I love writing about almost anything :)). It's no fun though, without an audience. Thank you very much for reading. I love comments, especially nice ones like yours.

Have a great week!

Awwee
Yes it shows from your post, and it's so well written. I agree with you about the audience. My pleasure reading as it was interesting, I enjoyed it. Thanks for sharing again❤️🤗
Have a lovely week yourself🌸

Your collages are becoming increasingly painterly! You are tapping your artistic vein!

Hello @alexanderalexis. Nice to see you here. More painterly? Maybe because I sometimes use Lunapic filters on different elements of the collage. That's a trick I learned form @shasta, who posts great photos from Alaska.

Hope you are well and doing what you enjoy, always. Thanks for stopping by.

Querida @agmoore, he disfrutado mucho tu post. Tus recuerdos infantiles deben ser grandiosos. Es un paisaje excepcional.
Aparte de esto, no sé si estas familiarizada con los alebrijes. Cuando vi tus "animalitos", fue lo primero que pensé. Me encantan.

Recibe un enorme abrazo de San Valentín.

Hola, querida @adncabrera,
I just looked up alebrijes. I love the concept and will read more about it. Yes, my little stick creatures fits perfectly.
The nice thing about the past is we can choose to think about the parts that please us. In my case, living close to nature was a gift.

Thank you for your generous spirit, your kind words and your support.

I wish for you a wonderful, peaceful week.

Warm regards,

Your photos are so beautiful. The water is sparkling and the weather around is nice. This is the first time I saw such a body of a horse. All in all a very good post

Thank you @momins. I loved looking up those pictures. And I love making the fantasy creature. All great fun. LMAC is a great community.

I appreciate your visit and your comment.

Thanks for your contribution to the STEMsocial community. Feel free to join us on discord to get to know the rest of us!

Please consider delegating to the @stemsocial account (85% of the curation rewards are returned).

You may also include @stemsocial as a beneficiary of the rewards of this post to get a stronger support. 
 

Thank you STEMsocial. That is very generous of you. I appreciate the acknowledgement and support very much!

Your content has been voted as a part of Encouragement program. Keep up the good work!

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That is very kind of you, @ecency. Your support is much appreciated.

A beautiful creation A.G. @agmoore with all the animated flowers. When I read of the Appalachians, great bluegrass or mountain music and step-dancing came to mine. Sounds like a lovely place to spend your earlier day.

I’ve been watching some of the Olympics and that little critter with the horse’s face would fit right in with the flips. 😊

Hope you had a great Valentine’s Day. A snow storm here.

Hello my friend, @redheadpei. Thank you for that lovely assessment of my collage. You are correct about much of the Appalachians. The northern end of the range, however, was settled to a large extent by religious dissenters, serious people. That culture is still palpable. I don't recall seeing much singing or dancing :))

It was a lovely place to grow up. I think you and I have that in common, our love of nature and animals. As for my little stick creature: I had fun imagining that entity. Silly, isn't it? I'm not watching the Olympics. I kid of feel sorry for all the athletes who put so much of their lives into this. The event has been marred I think in many ways.

Valetine's Day has passed. We survived :) Hope yours was great and that the snowstorm was gentle. Stay well.

Commenting before I even read: Just really appreciate these images while I lie here with a headache. Nothing soothes me more than remembering nature is a thing that exists... this images chill me rightttt down.

I am so sorry you are not well. It's hard to look at a computer screen with a headache. Thank you for making the effort. I did have fun finding these images.

Hope you are better soon!

Hello friend, your collage is excellent, it brings back many memories of your childhood in the Appalachian mountains, and the interesting facts that you mention in your collage.

Thank you my friend, @cetb2008 for visiting my blog and for your positive response. The memories are very satisfying and it was fun sharing them with my Hive colleagues. I know that you love walking in the mountains with your children. They will have wonderful memories, as I do.

Have fun with your kids. The grow quickly.

Oh my dear teammate, I'm glad I inspired you to bring that piece of stick to life. It brightens up the landscape of your collage. 😁

You grew up in a very peaceful place, I remember reading your post where you mention it and your walks in the mountains with your brothers if I remember correctly.

It's a good idea to take our memories and experiences to shape our collages.

Have a nice week my friend.🤗

Yes, you inspired me! Thank you. You have a great eye and great instincts. I did breathe life into that stick. 4! collages from that little twig. Hard to believe an adult spent so much time making those :))

Living near the forest was peaceful. With all the issues I have faced in life (that we all face in life) those early years of relative solitude and quiet have been an anchor.

You are so kind in your assessment of my unsophisticated work. One thing we can agree on: I obviously do have fun making these collages.

Thank you for visiting. Pleasure to know you my friend, @mballesteros.

Your collage is so amazing and harmonic.😊
Adding rainbow will make it more beautiful ❤️

Thank you for that lovely comment. Writing about the past felt good. It is a beautiful part of the world.

Maybe a rainbow might have improved the collages: perfectly harmonious:)

I hope you have a wonderful week. Thank you for visiting.

Thanks for this new 'collage of the Monday'. I particularly like them as they always come with some pieces of science that generally allow me to learn a few new things. Today is not an exception! Art and science united together once again! ;)

After reading the blog, I must admit that I remembered my old geography lessons from high-school, during which I learned that the Appalachians mountains are amongst the oldest mountains in the world. That seems like being so long ago (I should have been around 11 or 12 at that time).

I however didn’t know about the old South African chain of mountains that you mentioned. Its age is amazing, being so close to the age of the planet itself! I searched for the Barberton Greenstone Belt on the Internet, as I was interested in finding information on the rocks available from this chain of mountains.

In this process, I additionally discovered a funny fact. There is evidence for the impact of a huge meteor with Earth in the Belt, the impact having triggered magnitude 10.8 earthquakes all over the planet and generated megatsunamis high of thousands of metres. This was an interesting and unexpected finding ^^

By the way, it was nice to reads about your early days :)

Have a nice week!

Hello @lemouth,
What a lovely comment. Yes, art and science, to me, as you know one and the same. They flow seamlessly into each other.

As for the Appalachians: I didn't realize they were so old until I wrote this blog. In my childhood community we always had an innate sense of history. We felt connected not only to the land but to all the people who had lived on it before us. Learning the age of the Appalachians cements that sense of history.

It seems that old mountains forfeit height as they age. Erosion takes a toll, so the youngest mountains tend to be the tallest. This is true apparently of the Barberton Greenstone Belt also (I just looked it up... never heard of this range before).

There is evidence for the impact of a huge meteor with Earth in the Belt, the impact having triggered magnitude 10.8 earthquakes all over the planet and generated megatsunamis high of thousands of metres.

Fascinating. Something else to read about tonight :)

Those early days...wasn't I lucky? We were rather poor, but living where I did was a special kind of wealth. I'm grateful for that.

Thanks for reading with such attention and thank you for the most interesting feedback.

Hope the whole family, especially the little ones, are well.

As for the Appalachians: I didn't realize they were so old until I wrote this blog. In my childhood community we always had an innate sense of history. We felt connected not only to the land but to all the people who had lived on it before us. Learning the age of the Appalachians cements that sense of history.

This even goes beyond history as Earth was there well before humans appeared. I believe doing so is a good practice, in particular to learn how to appreciate the place in which we live (which is something often missing these days, unfortunately :( ).

It seems that old mountains forfeit height as they age. Erosion takes a toll, so the youngest mountains tend to be the tallest. This is true apparently of the Barberton Greenstone Belt also (I just looked it up... never heard of this range before).

That is totally true. The tallest mountains are always (often?) the youngest ones. As I mentioned in my previous comment, it was also the first time I heard about the Barberton Greenstone Belt. Every single element of knowledge is always good to take!

Those early days...wasn't I lucky? We were rather poor, but living where I did was a special kind of wealth. I'm grateful for that.

I may get a little bit philosophical here, but we should probably try to be as lucky as we could. I am always telling my kids to enjoy every single moment of their life, and anything they have, feel and see. Why focus on what we don't have (that could bring sadness or jealousy), instead of 'exploiting' best what they have. Of course, this applies to us and the way in which we live. This is not meant to be generalised to every single person (everyone and every situation is different).

PS: all of us are fine and happy at home. My wife and the two kids are in vacation this week, as it coincides with what is called the winter break for schools in France. I am the only one who is working (home office Monday and Tuesday; on site in Paris for the rest of the week).

Oh, you are alone! Hope the family has a great vacation. As for philosophy:

telling my kids to enjoy every single moment of their life

Wise man. Lucky kids. If there are unpleasant events in the past, once is enough. Let it go and live now.

Enjoy your quiet. I know you are looking forward to their return.

Fortunately, I am not alone, as no travel was planned. We were just enjoying time at home all together (with me working in front of the computer).