If you walk our local beach, you may find this view familiar. Our local beach is separated from the mainland by the South River which you can see below in the map. The South River joins the North River and the ocean in a very turbulent mash of currents and tides. A little history: The Portland Gale of 1989 shifted the mouth of the North River, separating Humarock and Scituate's "Fourth Cliff" from the rest of Scituate, and eventually the mouth of the South River moved there as well. This drawing is from the location of the "old mouth" of the South River, now beach. You can see the old and new below, a familiar contour to those familiar with the local landscape. The seawall and beachside homes come to an end at the old mouth. I wonder if someday the old mouth will open again to the sea.
This is my two hundred eighty-second daily drawing. Thank you for your continued interest.
I have begun converting some of my daily drawings to oil paintings. You can see my reference drawing here to the left, and read its blog post here. It is an interesting exercise, using only the daily drawing as reference, and thinking about how to convert those renderings into an oil painting. Before I begin, there is some thought about how to begin the process. In this case, I covered the entire board with a neutral ground, about value 4 on a 1-5 scale. Then I carefully wiped out all the lights using a clean brush, clean towel and my solvent of choice, which is Gamsol. This is my two hundred sixty-second daily drawing, and only the second not using ink in some way. I will post the finished painting on my blog later.
Thank you for your continued interest.
I like the "skyline" presented by the boats lined up in the local harbor... so many layers, so much detail, which I can choose to delve into or not. Nice place to spend some time. Thanks for looking.
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Our spring weather has been a bit upside down. In April and May we enjoyed day after day after day of beautiful sun and crystal clear air, wonderful for painting along the coast. Day after day stretched to week after week, each day more lovely than the last. Now it is June and raining and gray. We need it. Not a problem. Here's "Harborside", a study I painted with my class back in the sunny spring - kinetic energy, waiting to be released.
My class and I met in our local Scituate Harbor today. It was gorgeous! I researched weather, tides, wind direction, and determined that this piece of the harbor would be interesting, sheltered, warm (enough). Okay, some research, and lots of luck. We moved 25 yards closer to the harbor and the temperature dropped several degrees as the wind picked up. Some of my students are new to outside, or rusty after a winter indoors. It can be overly stimulating and my experience is that newer painters will often retreat into the safety of one iconic boat, sitting in profile, or perhaps one building, not that interesting, but "accessible" to the overly stimulated brain looking at a world without edge. 
I encourage the practice of making several thumbnail sketches looking at shapes, and their linking darks, remembering to leave room at the bottom of the painting for the viewer to enter. As usual, my class amazed me with their intentionality, good humor, intense thinking, and results. We spread out along the wall and down among the rocks, and were suddenly a part of the local scenery. I told them all that part of their training is to chat with "their public". We met moms with babies, grand moms with babies, walkers, bikers, joggers, a man with a dented canvas at home asking advice on fixing, a man with a lobster who asked if we had a quick sketch artist who might want to draw it. (Might want to draw a DEAD lobster, by the looks of it). We gracefully declined. A few friends stopped by. We made some new friends, and a bird on a wire dropped a gift on one painter's hand. I reveled in that wonderful call gulls make near the water, the sun and salt on my face, and the rich smell of clam dirt at low tide. Great day, great results.
This is the beginning of my painting, working title, "One Truck, Two Truck.." I was interested in the boat ramp leading up to the beautiful dory sitting in the lot, and the truck behind. Several of us painted the truck(s). Turns out there were several parked adjacent to one another. Their slow exodus was akin to peeling a multi-colored onion. As a result, each painting with truck had a different color, including silver, red, white, black. And, just an aside... when you stand next to the water painting a boat on the land it can be very disorienting. Each time I looked up for reference on the boat, I looked at the water and couldn't find my boat among those tethered to the pier. The disorientation was short-lived, but noteworthy.
Great day. Joyful day. Great day.
This is my two hundred eighty-second daily drawing. Thank you for your continued interest.
