Painting at Castle Island

It is another warmer than usual day.  My Aunt Theresa is expecting me today, and what that usually means is lunch and errands.   Since she has been using a walker, we are little more limited in our adventures.   I decide to pack up my painting gear and paint for a couple of hours in Boston before my visit.
I drove straight to Castle Island hoping that the predicted high winds would not be a problem.   I figured that the fort has so many angular walls that I would be able to find a warm spot that was also sheltered from the wind.    I was thinking that perhaps Sullivan's would be opening for the season soon, but I was relying on a vague memory of a handwritten piece of paper that would be taped up on the concession's front door each winter.   "See you in the Spring," followed by the date - always sometime in March.

I parked in the front row and stacked my gear onto a luggage cart.   I didn't have to walk very far to realize I would have to be on the upper sidewalk to find a windfree spot.  There are five major sides to Fort Independence, and I set up facing southeast.    Here is a photo of my vantage point and my set up.

Just beyond the wall in my painting a major runway for Logan International Airport juts out into Boston Harbor.  Every two or three minutes a jet would descend gradually and land at Logan, out of sight from where I was located.   I added a nice white jumbo jet just above the skyline of densely populated Winthrop with its assorted waterfront houses.  Several people stopped to watch the planes from the benches on this sunny sheltered side.   The grass slopes down from the upper sidewalk down to the outer perimeter sidewalk of Castle Island.   In case you haven't seen any of the Boston Harbor Island forts, and were wondering, that is grass on top of the fort.

I am sort of perplexed about the blue colors of the sky and water.   As I stood there, the light blue color of my painted sky was exactly the same as the real sky.   Now, in looking at this photo, the canvas is very light blue, yet the "real" sky in the photo is deep blue.  Similar issue with the water.   I know that photos make things bluer, but it is interesting that it seems to only make distant things bluer - not the blues on my canvas.  Maybe someone has some information they can share on this?

Although there was a steady stream of walkers, few stopped to talk or ask questions.  One woman was interested in having her dog painted.   I haven't ever done a pet portrait, nor am I particularly interested in doing one, but I gave her a card anyway.   She was a very cute dog.  It was also very nice to see a friend from back in the 80's whom I had not seen in decades.    This demonstrates that you cannot accurately depict Castle Island unless you put in the walkers.   That's what is missing from this painting right now; I'll let it dry a bit and then insert the walkers in the sweet spot where the path turns left around the corner.

Watching the Planes at Castle Island