I love to go fishing in small streams in Creede, Colorado. The streams are no wider than 10-15 feet at the most, have shallow gravel beds, muddy beaver ponds, deep pockets of water in the bends, are hidden yet open, undulating between wide and small, swift and placid, tangled and free.

Foliage touches surfaces of the water, grass drapes into it, providing shelter for the trout in the undercuts. The colorful willow tree with its narrow leaves contrast with pointy texture against the dense spruce and pines,  leaves and bark change throughout the seasons, from silvery gray, to bright yellow new growth, dense saturated green leaves changing to bright yellow.

The water is clear, bright, ice-cold, sometimes so much so that ice hangs off the willow branches that dangle in the water in early Spring. The rocks below the surface are mostly naked, devoid of moss, sometimes with branches tucked between them from a frustrated fisherman tearing off a fly eater branch or from the trimmings of a beaver. Deadwood wedges in as well from the spring runoff, and lay among a huge variety of textured, colored,  boulders and smaller rocks, spotted, stripped, silver, gray, red, blue-green with an occasional fleck of metallic silver, or gold floating in the gravely sand between them.

I really love that I am able to see easily; the decorative bottom of the streams; the fish rise, turn and hit just feet from me, the sun dancing, glinting and sparkling in the water, the reflection of grass and trees wiggling on the surface, a glimpse of the intense blue sky glimmering between the shadows of the pines, cast among the rocks and the spots of a fish turned on its side. All thrown together in a moment.

These collages are capturing my viewpoint, looking into the stream from above.  Just add the sound of water, and a tug of a fish on a line.

Created by carefully tearing up my paintings, and placing them in compositions to form a collage.

Framed size 12″ x 12″. Price: $225. Contact me for more information.