Rainbows in the Lehigh Valley Gorge

[TMo]

Before weathering....   

A rolling stone grows no moss, but a stationary one attached to a bridge pier and built near or in a river?  There will be moss.  

I made some basic assumptions - the southern abutment (north facing) would have the most moss, and the northern abutment would then have the least amount of moss.  The closer you are to the water's surface, the more moss would grow.

First step was to get about 6 shades of green out of the paint box - if you ever look at moss closely, you'll note that there is a ton of variety in terms of color.  My technique is to apply alternating dark and light shades with an almost dry brush.  If you put too much of one color on, dabble and mute that area with an alternate shade.

Here's the result:

   

I was going to start putting the paints away, but my eye kept straying to the piers.  There was something that just wasn't jiving with nature.  About 10-12 scale feet above the water level, the moss stopped.  It was a very jarring transition, and I didn't like the result.  However, I didn't want to add it all of the way up the pier, and I decided to experiment with a brush that was almost completely devoid of paint, brushing across the upper sections of each pier and adding just a hint of each green color.  If I made a mistake and added too much paint, I got the block colors out and faded out the green.  This might be hard to present in a photograph (the difference is subtle, but definitley more pleasing to the naked eye here in the room), but here's the end product (in terms of paint).

   

I'm going to prepare some moss fragments to add to some of the masonry for that "3D" effect, but don't know if that's going to get done before my upcoming trip to Texas to see my granddaughter for the first time (another interlude that's probably going to mean I still won't be able to run trains over this bridge until I get back).