The Wondering Falls

"Cat Gill Falls"

By James Swanson / Traveler Neil
12" x 9" Oil on panel

Watch the journey of this painting.

Fell and walking? They sure don't sound like they go together, but they do.

Photo's are from Traveler Neil all rights reserved.

Take hill and walking, they sound fine together. Hill walking, right? Well, when I looking up what exactly Hill walking was, I came across the term Fell walking.

I Googled Fell walking to see what it was and that is how I stumbled upon our next Traveler Neil's web site.

Neil at High Seat Summit

Neil has a very nice web site that documents his walks with a ton of good info about his walks and trails. Oh and lots of wonderful photos of these journeys.

Neil has done pretty much all the walks you can in the UK. All ending with tired feet and a smile on his face.

A High Seat Trig Pillar Flush Bracket marking the top.

And the difference between Fell walking and Hill walking, Fell walking takes place on mountains and Hillwalking, yeah you know.

Into the woods.

Traveler Neil’s Story: This was a day of mixed fortunes and experiences. Mark and I drove to Ashness Bridge on the eastern side of Derwent Water and parked in the car park just beyond the bridge. There was lots of room in the car park as we were quite early for most I suspect. After putting on our boots and organizing our rucksacks and equipment we eventually set off at about 8.55am. Although it was mainly cloudy we did have a few glimpses of the sun as we headed back down the road to Ashness Bridge.

Another splendid photo from Neil's walk

We took a path on the right hand side after the bridge, which ascended the hillside below Brown Knotts. Still gradually ascending we followed the path above Falcon Crag and round to Cat Gill. Then we carried on to Lady’s Rake and finally the summit of Walla Crag at 379 meters. This was our first Wainwright of the day and was quickly reached in about ½ an hour.

Derwent Water & Bassenthwaite from near Bleaberry Fell

The views across Derwent Water were great although some of the high fells were obscured by cloud. In front were the Newlands Fells (including Cat Bells, Maiden Moor, High Spy and Dale Head), to our right were the Coledale Fells and Lorton Fells, and in the distance were Bassenthwaite and Keswick. It certainly was a superb panorama.

Neil's photo of Cat Gill Falls taken during his walk.

Travelers painting " Cat Gill Falls" This is a quick paint day for me. The holidays are here and spending a lot of time in my cold studio isn't going to go over well with the family.

The photo I chose to paint from Neil had to be something that I could handle in a few hours and something that I haven't done before.

I've seen a lot of great waterfall shots from Travelers while working on this project, but this one of Neil's just felt different to me. Like something that I might want to paint if I was in hid shoes and standing before the falls, and with the name Cat Gill Falls I had to take a shot at it.


The sketch just a quick warm up and a way to lock in the design for the painting. The design was already there in Neil's photo. a graceful S.

I toned a panel with some thinned out Raw Sienna and whipped out the falls with a paper towel.

The darks are painted in. It looks like I used the same dark for for this stage, but there are at least 4 colors there- just a bad photo.

The structure of the painting is done. Time to paint in some cools to balance it off.

Blocking in, I'm bring in the greens here to get it blocked in quickly.

The Greens are done, more cools are added. Starting to paint in the depth.

Painters Tip: Simple one Cool Colors recede in space and Warm Colors come forward in space. When you put a warm color of the same value against a cool color the warm always comes forward. That's why stop signs are red.

Pretty much blocked in now. time to refine things a bit.

I've been waiting and waiting to put in the flower colors. I wanted to put them in thick and juicy, and didn't want wet paint to mix with them to much. I mixed up a few different shades of the rose color to keep this color from flattening out the painting.

Done. I just went in with the palette knife here and there to finish it up.

Details for the Painting

Framed Painting

"Cat Gill Falls"

By James Swanson / Traveler Neil
12" x 9" Oil on panel

I really enjoyed this paint. It was quick and to the point, but meeting Traveler Neil was the high point. Thanks Neil for the sharing of photos and your story. Your walks are beautiful to see, hopefully I'll paint one in person one day.

Walkers take are a great help in my journey to see this world, if you have a journey or trip that was interesting let me know here or at www.theartistandthetraveler.org.

Thanks for looking in, I'm just truck'n on down the road.