Rainbows in the Lehigh Valley Gorge

[TMo]

Moss has been growing on me.  Literally.  As I write this, my fingers are a combination of wood glue and a variety of green stuff.  Mostly bagged moss, some ground foam, etc.

I decided that the rock surfaces around the Mud Run curve needed to feature moss.  My dog and I take weekly hikes through Rocks State Park here in Maryland which is only about 3 miles from my house as the crow flies.  The Ma and Pa once ran through it on its way between Baltimore and York.  I-83 has taken its place.  Rocks is aptly named, with a lot of boulders strewn throughout the property, put there through scouring of the land through the Deer Creek watershed.  Most of these boulders have their fair share of moss built up on them, especially those on the north side of the park.  Taking notice of the moss must have "rubbed off" on me, because I suddenly wanted to add it to my scenery in Mud Run.

I tried a lot of paint techniques, and I could have settled for that finish.  Here's an example of painting one of the rock walls facing north:

   

The paint used was just a variety of greens.  I'd load my brush (darkest greens first) and take most of the paint off of it by dabbing on my pallette disk.  I then dabbed on the stone, picked the next lighter shade of green and added it to the area that I'd just done.  Layers of different greens followed, finishing off with a very apple green mixed with white.  If you look at moss on stone, you can see a lot of color representation in a very small area.

The painted moss was nice, but I was missing what I thought was something essential - especially on rocks in shade on the north side - the stuff had Depth!  You'd poke at it, and it was almost like the stone was covered by a blanket.  I decided I wanted to give added depth with a bunch of "green stuff"

Got my bags of moss out and picked a bunch of different color combos.  I'd grab a clump and my scissors and gave the stuff a haircut.  I ended up with a tray filled with the stuff.

   

Took a little wood glue and dabbed it on the surface of my rocks and picked up a pinch of moss and ground it into the glue and let go.  Stuck real nice, but it looked too much like a plant.  You see, moss is tiny in structure and I'd missed that in shearing my moss.

Thursday night on my way home from work there was an accident that forced everyone to detour to a side road that dumped you out on another road altogether.  I pulled up behind a bunch of red taillights to wait my turn.  Wham!  The Honda Civic behind me fared a lot worse than the bumper of my pickup, and since then I've been on the phone trying to line up an estimate, a rental, a place to fix my bumper, etc.  After my initial lack of success with the moss project, I called my insurance company and while I was on hold, began taking that tray of mixed moss and cutting it up into much smaller pieces.  I'd grab a pinch and cut, cut, cut it.  Pick up the next pinch and cut, cut, cut.  Ended up with a much better product and ironed out the arrangements for my truck.

This afternoon I decided to see how the fruits of my labor looked.  I may add some tweaks or do some subtraction, but here's a couple of shots:

       

Have some thought about adding some "brown stuff" as well in select areas.  It's amazing how leaves and dirt cling to crevices in rock surfaces and almost vertical natural elements.  More on that soon I hope.