Sunday, April 14, 2013

"Setting Out" oil 6 x 6

My latest in a series of working boat paintings. Sun, salt, sea.  I love the lines, angles, and power of these purposeful workhorses. Each of these boats is a minute dot on the ocean surface, and lobstering is a physical and dangerous occupation.  I have been closely cropping the boats to convey their mass, their strength, their volume.   These boats are beautiful. 

Spring is finally arriving here on the east coast and I am heading back to the water to paint.

As always, thanks for looking.

Sunday, April 07, 2013

"Don't Walk" 6 x 6 oil Sun in the City

The March theme for my painting challenge group, Girls Just Wanna Paint, was "sunlight".  It has been dark, long winter here in New England.  We had our first blizzard in a few years.  Snow measured in feet rather than inches is doable.  After all, we live in Massachusetts.  However, this storm brought high winds that wreaked havoc on trees and power lines. We had a 4-day blackout (7 days for friends at the other end of town). We huddled around the wood stove, played games, read, listened to the oddly disquieting silence.  It was a winter for hunkering down, in a good way.  BUT, it was gray, and gray, and dark, and gray.  Ergo, the sunlight challenge.  I have a folder on my laptop named "Interesting".  (Really).  Sunlight was scarce this winter, so I poked through the Interesting folder and found some wonderful images of Newbury Street in Boston from a few years ago.  "Don't Walk" is my interpretation of one of them.  Newbury Street travels east/west and ends at Boston's Public Garden.  Later in the day, sun starts to recede behind the buildings, but still illuminates the Public Garden where the adjacent buildings are a block away, or a little lower.  I find my step quickening that time of day to catch the fleeting patch of sun.  Thanks for looking and please check out Girls Just Wanna Paint's take on "sunlight".