Black Hole of Calcutta Falls, watercolor

This is a piece I have been meaning to do for a while but it it has just sat in the shelves of my brain waiting to be dusted off. I originally posted my plein air pencil drawing of the Black Hole of Calcutta Falls  about 3 years ago. When I finally decided to recreate it in watercolor, I decided not to just work directly from the pencil drawing, although I did do the preliminary sketches from it, so there are some similar shapes. But to accurately capture the colors and feel of the falls, I needed to make a day trip up to these falls, just off the confluence of the north and middle forks of the American River. Since my last visit 3 years ago, they have built a foot bridge over the creek, but the charm of the falls was the same, other than a lot of other people on the day I went. It even had close to the same average flow of water as it did the last time. I took some reference photos of the falls as well as some other pics for future projects before heading home.

This painting is the first time I used my masking fluid, which seemed necessary to depict the water splashing over the black rocks. I was worried it would never come off since it seemed to become part of the paper as I painted over it, but after the paint dried, it rubbed right off using a clean finger. Then I went back in to lessen the stark white that had been left with some light washes.