The torrent or mood of the river flows by, and is so in tune with surrounding hills, the topography, and the immediate landscapes. Take for instance the Madison River where the hills on either side roll at a gradual grade and the terrain is void of large trees and has been smoothed over from ripping winds that come across their surface with such a volatile ferocity that has the sweeps of the stream’s skeleton is laid bare to the viewers that are taking in its constant riffles and tranquil corners that stretch for miles.

A fly cast painting in this environment can take on two very extreme differences in the fact that the river is a constant smooth, slow, riffle in a density of oxygen referred to as a “watershed” and the other density that we survive in with the air and wind that can come flying through with unabashed anger. Always referring to the honesty of the painting as a conduit to recording the river has to take in the fact that the differences in surrounding densities that can affect the outside atmosphere of the painting is the floundering circumstances a person can find themselves in with polar opposites of mood from the river and the challenge of casting in the wind with a fly rod. The painting adjustments that can be made are the shape of the fly brush that is chosen, and density of paint that is put on the fly brush to combat the extremes of the wind. The palette then becomes the bridge of a couple adjustments to counteract the violence of the wind and accuracy of the casts to make a painting.

A painting that is subdued in the fact that clean lines and thick paint tones down more sporadic and asymmetrical lines that come from the less structured marks and watered down paint. Thick paint is becoming a staple of demonstrating a slower stream as viscosity of paint that is thick can stop the eye from looking into the painting further and take away the potential of seeing other colors behind bolder marks. Faster streams that have a vast variety of different terrain on the opposite bank would receive more watered down marks, asymmetrical lines, and showing a variety of colors creating an impression of rocks that can be seen as if looking in a stream and only seeing the flickers of color for different stones and underlying vegetation.

On a river like the Yellowstone River just out of Livingston, the wind will blast through there as if being shot out of a shaken up pop can. There are trees in quite abundance along its banks and the crags of cliffs abound in the distance, but still allow for parts of its reflection to be seen on the surface of the stream’s surface. The signature landscape that is along the watershed of the Yellowstone River is rapid and enraged as the river itself. The strength of the current is a variety of depth, movement and playing to the variety of shallows that has an incredible selection of colored stones. Adding water to the paint in a Yellowstone situation will allow the paint to move further on the surface with heavy hits and colors that can be seen through an overlay of marks will have the eye moving across the painting sideways with the flow of the current, as well as into the painting taking in the shapes of the rocks underneath the whiplike current’s hits of paint.