~INSPIRATION~

I've been taking a wonderful on-line art workshop and it has been quite motivating and inspiring. It's been awhile since my Muse has guided me.  It was truly serendipitous that I found the Painted Thoughts Blog.  Now my muse's name is Laure Ferlita.  Besides all the journal pages we've been painting for the class (see the post for Imaginary Trip to New Orleans), here are a few more paintings I've done in the last couple weeks.

"Indian Dancers and Totem Pole", Monument Valley
My sister vacationed in Arizona last year and this painting was her birthday present.

"Sea Oats in the Dunes"
I joined a website Paint My Photo.
  This site allows artists to use other artists photos without infringing on any copyright laws.

"The Old Mill"
The old mill is the oldest building in my hometown of Hatboro, Pennsylvania. It was built here on the Pennypack Creek in 1720 by a Mr. Dungworth. In August of 1777, Gen. George Washington used this mill to grind grain for his troops, on his way to an encampment at the Moland House on the Neshaminy Creek, where General Lafayette joined the army.
 The mill became an eating establishment in 1918.  Sadly, it  closed  a few years ago.

"Maxine Baritt Park" in Venice, Florida.
Thi is our newest beachside park.  It has a large pavilion with picnic tables
 and views of a large pond, the Gulf and the Venice Pier.

"Neuilly-sur-Seine"
This little park is located on a small triangle in the Paris suburb of  Neuilly.
My sister-in-law & brother-in-law would walk their 2 poodles here often.

Painting is so relaxing and I feel so good...the endorphins are flowing!
Art Therapy works every time.

Carmel Bay~ Start to Finish

In 2010, the US Open Golf Tournament was held at Pebble Beach in California.  While watching the 4 rounds, this scene was shown prior to most of the commercial breaks.  The Big Sur coast and Carmel Bay is just beautiful and I wanted to paint it.  So I grabbed the sketch book and while watching the golf, sketched the coastal view over the 4 days.

(My sketch didn't copy very well....I don't do detailed value thumbnail sketches.)

Once I got the basic composition worked out, I chose my color palette for the painting. Over the years, I have made and accumulated a lot of color reference swatches.  I used the following swatches to choose the palette for this painting.

I chose the sky color (windsor blue and pthalo blue), the ocean colors(cobalt teal and ultra turquoise), the rock combinations( all the different umbers and violets), the colors for the sand(buff titantium) and trees (several combinations of blues and quinacridine gold) and shrubs.  Usually,  I would put all of these choices on one sheet of paper for reference while painting and then keep it with the sketch for future reference.

I also look through my library of art books to get ideas for the different effects that I may want to create.  For this painting, I needed to review wave action so I looked through lots of seascapes.

I referred to this image for rocks, foamy water and wave action.

I faintly sketched the horizon line, then the trees and rocks coastline. Then, as I always do when I start a landscape, I put in the sky and clouds first.



Then I lay the first wash of the sea, rocks, beach and trees, shrubs and foliage.

I continue to layer on color, creating the light and dark areas.  For this painting, I got this far and got stuck. The background is not too bad but the foreground looks very pale and undefined, I didn't like the water color and I wasn't sure how to proceed.  I was liking what I had so far and didn't want to mess it up...BUT I didn't know what it needed or what to do next.  So I put on top of my bookcase and studied it ....a lot!

I wanted this area of the water meeting the beach to be foamy.

After a week or so, I decided to take a photo of the unfinished work and send it to my art teacher, Dani Tupper; asking her to critique it and offer suggestions.

"Carmel Bay"

This is the finished painting.  (It's pretty obvious that it is definitely a better photograph.) The sky is the same.  I changed the color of the water by glazing with different shades of turquoise so that there would be more of a color difference between sky and water.  The foamy rush of sea to shore is created with negative painting and also adding white gouache (This is where the reference photo was most useful).  Adding the purple to the beach, suggesting wet sand, provided the contrast of water meeting the beach.  Dani suggested deepening the values of the rocks and having them less detailed in the foreground so that your eye would travel down towards the point where the rocks meet the water.  I removed some of the deep greens in the background trees and shrubbery.  I also scrubbed out the sandy paths between the rocks leading down to the beach creating the needed value contrast.

When I posted this painting on Fine Art America, I received a comment from a Californian saying that this was exactly how it looked....I thought that was the best compliment.

Shorebirds~

I think one of the main reasons I decided to stay in Florida is the

"flora and fauna".

I especially like the shorebirds!

I was absolutely fascinated with the sanderlings.  I love watching them "skitter" to avoid the incoming waves. And, they are very territorial.

  This is the first painting done after coming to Florida.

Seagulls are amazing.  They can detect a cracker crumb a mile away. 

And if just one tries to grab it, every seagull within a mile will be there

in an instantto try to steal it away.  One of my favorite sights, is watching

a whole flock take off at once.

  This is what I was trying to capture in this painting.

Egrets are the subject of many of my paintings.Their bearing is stately, regal.

During mating season,they have the most beautiful lime green marking

 near their eye and they develop the long, feathery plummage.

This painting is a watercolor batik done on masa paper.  I love the batik look but the process is very messy and the smell of hot wax is not pleasant .  I love the way this turned out.  It was painted from a photo that I took at the Venice Rookery.

More egrets.

 I have made this painting into a note card~it's a popular design.

  The truth is that this is actually a small section of a much larger piece that

was a "muddy" failure...but I did as many instructors suggest and found the

 "good" part and cropped it. I'm glad it didn't go in the trash pile.

Seagulls punctuate the beach. They're the cherry on the sundae.

  You really miss them when they are not around.

I had never seen a sandhill crane before coming to Florida.

  I had friends in Colorado who were birdwatchers; they would always travel down to New Mexico to see the thousands of migrating cranes.

Have you ever heard a sandhill crane?

  They sound like a large piece of machinery that hasn't been oiled and

 is on the verge of breaking down. They can be heard from a very long distance.

Sandhill cranes are absolutely fearless.

  Our area is a designated preserve. The cranes are almost always in pairs,

 feed on the side of busy streets or right in your backyard.They can stop traffic

 for along time as they strut slowly, purposely across the road. 

Seeing them always takes my breath away.

I have to admit this is not my favorite painting.  The colors and composition are all wrong.  But I love the great blue herons.  They are everywhere.  They especially like to hang around the fisherman on the beach, taking every opportunity to steal a dinner from the fisherman's bait bucket.  It is quite a sight, watching a heron swallow a whole fish. 

More egrets.  Again painted from a photo taken at the rookery.

And MORE egrets.  This one painted on YUPO.

And it just wouldn't be Florida without the Brown Pelican.

  It is not the State Bird as some think, though it should be.

 

I've painted a lot of pelicans but this is my favorite.

So ends today's lesson on Florida Shorebirds.

How a Beach Bum makes ART

As long as I can remember I have loved the beach.

Whenever I could, I would get my feet in the ocean~no matter where, no matter how cold.

When I retired, I decided to live on the Gulf coast of Florida.

My goal: to become a beach bum.

As a beach bum, I have accomplished the following:

• learned how the beach changes from day to day
• learned the names of the various types of seaweed that washes onshore
• can spot schools of mullet, dolphins , manatees and manta rays
• can tell how hard the wind is blowing just by the feel of it
• have shell collections....not A collection but "collections"
• The list goes on, but that's another story!

 My shell obsession began before I actually moved to Florida. I used to vacation here, visiting my parents each October. For the week I was down, I would walk the beach and pick up shells. I started finding very tiny, perfect  shells. THAT was my first "collection".  For the week or 10 days I would gather shells, the tiny ones; then I decided to put them together in little groups~ I called them "beach sculptures".

On the last night of my visit, I would make the sculptures. I'd date them and spray them with clear acrylic and take them back to Colorado as souvenirs for friends. There are alot of friends who have one of these.

When I decided to stay in Florida, the real collecting got underway.....

The barnacle collection

The Lion's Paw collection

The Lightning Whelk collection

    The Black Collection                                                 The White Collection

The Yellow Collection

(not so easy to find)

The Key Hole Limpets

Before I put you totally asleep, I'll add one more

The FLAT shell collection

Several beach people look for flat shells(they are actually one-half of a scallop). They're hard to detect; usually covered with sand or hidden under other shells.  There was sort of an on-going competition to see who could find the most on a particular day.

I have even MORE collections but I think you get the idea. I like shells. 

But, they were beginning to take over the house and the lanai, I had to do something with them!

So Shell Projects began.

First was the "flat shell" project.   I had been collecting them for 2 years and figured I had enough to cover a table on the lanai.  It took about 5 days to complete this but it is "one of a kind"!

Next came "Shell Pots"...............

(again, something I learned from the "fairy godmother of crafters)

                                

The pot is at the right side of the shell filled succulent garden.

I made alot of pots, mostly with Rock Oysters, another collection.

Finally there is my "junk shell" art...these are the worn, broken shells ~the ones nobody picks up.  The only requirement for picking one of these up was there had to be a small hole in it.    WHY?

so that I could to string them.

                                                                                               Yes those are seahorses

So there you are, Beach Bum Art~ with shells (aka "beach treasures").