The Butler River is a tributary of the Whataroa, one of the great rivers that descends from the Southern Alps to the West Coast of New Zealand. It is about a day’s walk from the rivermouth to the Butler Hut, situated on the confluence of the Butler and the Whataroa Rivers.
I spent a memorable week in there with a couple of hunters out after chamois, and on one day we followed the Butler River up from the Hut to its source at Butler Lake, up above the snowline. It was quite a hard day’s walking on the track through the bush beside the river, skirting boulders and pools on the way. These are great boulder rivers and as you climb higher the stream bed gets more and more interesting.
The weather was actually very pleasant, but for some reason when I came to do this painting, the atmosphere of the bush and the roaring river took over, and the feel of the painting is definitely overcast and rainy.
So here is a study of the higher reaches of the Butler on a grey drizzly day when the waters, fed by rain, are churning their way down the boulder banks and the limited visibility lends itself to an almost monochromatic effect. On a day like this the sound of the river drowns out everything else.
Painted in Oils on Board. Actual size: 20in x 31in.
Sold – Christchurch NZ.
Patricia
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Tags: reaches, atmosphere, Lake, Butler River, butler lake, pools <BR/>
