In my book, ‘Paint Every Mountain’ I include some tips on quickly capturing the essence of a landscape with a few colourful ‘shapes’ using an easily carried painting kit ─ a bag of crayons.
I don’t always follow these ‘essence’ tips, myself ─ especially when I encounter a landscape with as many intriguing details and peculiarities as we found in Ketchikan AK, the first port of call on our recent cruise.
Only partly cloudy the day we were there, Ketchikan is normally so wet
that its annual rainfall is recorded in feet (about 13 of them)! The main
street through town is set on pillars in the sea at the base of the lush
mountainside. Side streets are so steep some are not ‘streets’ at all, but wooden staircases snaking up the rain-forested slopes. And Creek Street is in fact
a creek, with moss-covered bridges and houses, artists’ studios and shops
cantilevered over the torrent.
