Ripple Effect

Title

Ripple Effect

Artist

Johanna Girard

Medium

Painting - Oil On Canvas

Description

Oil on Canvas, 40" x 30"
This painting depicts the view of the San Gabriel Mountains as seen from the Santa Fe Dam Recreation area, one of my favorite areas to paint in the Los Angeles area. As a winter rainstorm has clears, a lone mallard duck lands in the lake, sending ripples dancing across the surface, and altering the reflections of the clouds into an almost abstract whirling design. Just like this little duck makes big ripples that spread across the lake, the small actions that we take every day can make a big impact on our environment and our world.

Surprisingly, this peaceful scene is literally surrounded on three sides by busy freeway interchanges full of cars stuck in rush hour traffic and is smack in the midst of one of L.A.’s most heavily industrial areas. For years, I drove past the massive rock wall of the earthen dam that forms this man-made lake on my commute home from work, and never realized what an oasis laid behind the wall. This man-made lake is a welcome watering hole for egrets, ducks, and Canada geese after their long winter migration south. Right in the heart of industrial Los Angeles!

When Army Corps of Engineers constructed the dam back in the 1930’s, this area of Los Angeles was largely undeveloped scrub brush and farmland. The men who built this dam 85 years ago probably never realized that their labor would be preserving some of the last acres of natural watershed land left in the Los Angeles of the 21st century. Now that’s what I call a Ripple Effect!

Uploaded

September 6th, 2017

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