Cut River

Ever since the Pilgrims settled in Plymouth and subsequently, Marshfield, there have been efforts to improve inland connectivity between Plymouth, Duxbury Bay, and Scituate.   In 1633, a canal was dug to better connect the Marshfield Rivers (Green Harbor River, North River, and South River) to the bay. In 1636, this canal was widened and deepened per order of the court. In 1806, a group of Marshfield landowners successfully petitioned the court for permission to dig a more direct canal from Green Harbor to Duxbury Bay. Known today as the Cut River, this canal flowed through the marshes and meadows behind Green Harbor Beach, and out to sea near present-day Canal Street on the Duxbury line.  In fact the Cut River is believed by some to be the oldest man-made canal in North America.  As impressive as this claim is, perhaps conjuring up a vision of grandeur, the opposite is true. The actual canal and bridge are quite small.   

On a mild afternoon recently I set up facing west at the end of Avon Street, providing a perfect meadow level view of the small bridge over the Cut River.   Since it is still Spring, the visible marsh grasses are last year's dried straw.  Colors are generally washed out. I brightened up the color in the foreground, which was not true to the scene.  The real scene was pretty darn drab.  

Still to be added are the tall telephone poles and wires, that run parallel to the bridge.   I believe I will also add some vertical straw in the foreground.  

I was imagining the history behind this waterway just a few hundred feet from where I live, and thinking, I am so lucky to live here.

Seagulls Squabbling at Driftway

View of Easel and Scene at Herring River

I cannot remember a finer stretch of New England weather than this year, 2012 A.D..   We had another great day to paint outside so our destination is the Herring River which borders the Driftway in Scituate.  It was mid-morning and a little over an hour until high tide so we needed to keep a watchful eye on the water level.   We set up right next to the water's edge, close enough to enjoy a nice low vantage point, close enough to hear the gentle ripples, and frankly, close enough to call this day perfection.


Standing at my easel, my view was just as shown in the first photo.   Misrepresented in this photo are the blues.  The photo shows a drastic difference in the blues between the painting and the actual scene...a translation problem prevalent in photos.   When comparing the color of the sky in the second photo to the actual scene, they look much closer to each other and to reality.

Get Off My Blasted Ballast
or
Find Your Own Piling

At the end of our paint-out, my painting consisted of sky, water, distant shore and the foreground pilings.   I had wanted to include a seagull sitting atop the tallest piling, but there were no gulls around.      I happen to love the quirky nature of seagulls.   At home, I found an old photo of one gull screaming at another about which one should get to sit on the perfect piling.  I added them to this painting, and from the looks of this, I need to re-draw them to correct the wings of the airborne gull and to better accentuate the beaks, eyes and legs of both.   The title is not decided yet.

Bay Farm Tree

Bay Farm in Kingston, MA is located on Kingston Bay, offering painters and nature lovers a scenic and easily accessible area.  Shorebirds, ducks, songbirds, and birds of prey all share fields, woods, and the shore of Bay Farm. The secluded shoreline along Kingston Bay can be reached by following the wide, grassy path that leaves the parking area and cuts through the main field, heading directly eastward toward the ocean. The vegetation and wildflowers in the field attract a wide assortment of butterflies and birds.

There was a steady stream of visitors to the parking lot, mostly with dogs.   The more scenic views are at the shore, but I wasn't up for trudging a half mile, only to then be a little nervous about being alone,  especially since there was something to paint just standing at the car.  I set up my easel adjacent to the parking lot and faced west, looking across the road to a field bordered by a ranch style fence and guarded by this venerable maple.

Result after Bay Farm Paint Out

Spring buds on bare branches gave the vegetation a washed out look of pale pink, pale green, and pale gray hues. Dry grasses from last year on the left stoo dout against the darker shrubs behind them. The field grasses were a variety of greens, from pale bluish green in the distant clearing, to gold-green in the mid-distance, to rusty gold and green in the foreground.

The center of interest, obviously, is the big old maple.  At one point, I noticed that I really liked the shadows on the thick left lower bough. Upper tree branches had cast zebra shadows and even the trunk had some interesting elongated shadows. I locked in these shadows and no matter that they continued to change, I was going to stick with them.

Bay Farm Tree

When I came back to the painting one week later in the studio, I used a reference photo to fine tune and finish the painting.   Admittedly I took artists' license with the heightened color on the tree trunk.  The real thing was too gray.   I mixed up some naples yellow, cad red deep and some of my sky mixture and used that to apply highlights.   I used this warm highlight mixture more toward the bottom of the tree and most especially when a lit branch was crossing a cool dark background color, like the evergreen trees in the distance.  The highlight color had less warmth in it on the upper branches;  the sky light seemed to wrap itself around the upper branches and rob them of any warm color.

As I take stock of the "final" product, I am thinking that it would be nice to do this scene in each of the four seasons.   There - I said it, so I probably will.

Executive, Trooper and Swan

A Mercedes driving business man, a twenty year Massachusetts State Trooper and a swan crossed paths on a Spring afternoon on Route 3 in Duxbury, MA near Exit 11.

The executive was a stressed but benevolent animal lover who noticed the wayward swan strutting dangerously close to the highway shoulder.  Within a split second of buzzing past the former ugly duckling in his Mercedes, the man pulled into the breakdown lane and screeched to a stop.    This week had been full of events he couldn't control, and he didn't like it.   Maybe he could score a small success at the side of the highway.

He threw the car into reverse and rumbled back along the highway in the breakdown lane toward the swan.    Just as the executive emerged from his vehicle, a Massachusetts State Trooper pulled over to assist.   The trooper assumed the man in the suit had a disabled vehicle.   The executive grinned at the trooper then looked at the swan which was now waddling southbound in the grass, the backdraft from each vehicle whizzing by ruffling the feathers of the swan ecru. 

The trooper started trailing the swan which seemed determined to walk onto the highway.   The executive hoped that the trooper had received training for such circumstances at the police academy, because he knew he had no fresh ideas to offer.   The trooper's body language hinted that maybe he hadn't - thumbs now in his pockets and giving sheepish looks toward the mystified motorists passing by.

The executive and trooper were relieved when the audible overhead honking of the swan's mate convinced the highway walker to also take flight.     This was a life saving adventure story that the two men may not readily admit to, but felt good about nonetheless.

Unusual scenes present themselves often enough to provide ample ideas for paintings.  I witnessed the scene I described, albeit with my verbose embellishment above.   What other explanation could there be?

Thumbnail Sketches - Memory Aid

When I got home I did a some small sketches of the scene so as to remember the placement (and the idea itself).

I turned to Google image search to obtain pictures of each of the elements of the scene, the trooper, the cruiser, the Mercedes, the swan, etc..   I pulled each of the picture elements into a Word document, then I resized each of the pictures to an approximate, relative size using the inches ruler on the left margin.    

Paper Collage

I printed out the Word Document, then cut out the pictures.  Here is my very crude paper collage in which the pictures are pieced together providing some semblance of my painting-to-be.

Ordinarily I wouldn't give a blog update halfway through a small painting, but since we are going on vacation, here is the painting at the halfway (at the most) status.

Executive, Trooper, and Swan - Session 1

Stay tuned for more updates on this one.   For one thing I promise to fatten up the State Trooper, and of course, add the original story hero, Mr. Businessman.

Salvaging - I Mean Transforming

Some artists like to produce their paintings all in one session, i.e. "alla prima."   They dislike revisiting a piece to make adjustments or changes, especially since the base painting is no longer wet.  I was surprised to learn this, because in most cases, I love coming back to a painting for subsequent iterations, especially because the paint is now dry.

If I am not crazy about my first effort, I will set it aside and let it dry, rest, cure, etc..   I don't even like to see a first try painting in my line of sight for at least a few days.  There is sure to be more clarity around what is good and what has to change when returning to a painting with fresh eyes. 

Iteration 1

This painting was begun in my Friday morning class.   There were forsythias and daffodils galore in class that day.   The pure, fresh color of "just cut" blooms almost had a satiny glow.      The cloth background was a warm complementary purple.    There was a clear glass cruet on the right and a blue-green pottery vase on the left.  Iteration 1 shows the painting after the first session.  See why I don't like "alla prima?"   I need "molte," many.

Painting the lit petals that were bright white and bright yellow was straightforward. The shadowed petals were the challenge. It's hard to paint dark white, and dark yellow - counter-intuitive really.   Flicking my eyes back and forth between the set up and my painting revealed that the dark white and dark yellow were not white and yellow, but blue-green, and raw sienna respectively.   

Iteration 2

A few days later I came back to the painting and decided that unless I applied some salvage techniques, I wouldn't want to hang it as is.   I found the background unattractive so I would make a drastic change to it.   Why not put a framed painting behind my forsythia?  I made the edges of the frame fuzzy and the main color blue so that this background painting would not compete with the bright flowers, but be an area that my eye would go back to after digesting the flowers.  Iteration 2 is to the right.


At this point, I felt like I was closer to being done.  The four final problems I saw in Iteration 2 that I fixed in Iteration 3 follow:

1) The right hand edge of the daffodil on the table is almost exactly the same shape as the cruet.   That's bad.  I overlapped them.

2) The white daffodil petal shadows are too light.  I darkened them.

Iteration 3  Final?

3) The shape of the rightmost lit petal is too elongated.  I rounded it off more.

4) Notice how the stem of the daffodil on the table is the same light color all the way to the flower.  The stem needed to be shadowed from the petals closest to it.


So salvaging - I mean transforming - in multiple (molte) painting sessions can be fun and rewarding.   The good is preserved;  the bad is tweaked or even drastically altered.   It's all up to the boss of the painting - me. 

Painting at the Beach

How can I best capture a favorite landscape scene, and paint in the comfort and convenience of my studio?    Answer:  I can't. 

On the March day I started this painting, it was warm enough to walk over to the beach with all my painting gear.   I set up facing east looking out at the two jetties that form the mouth of the Green Harbor River.   The sky was a milky white with lots of high wispy clouds.   The water was very calm and actually was reflecting the jetty, which is unusual.  More commonly, the surf is too choppy to be reflective. 

In the foreground, A recent storm with extra high surf had uprooted copious amounts of red seaweed and deposited it in the form of a two foot deep strip for a good long stretch of the beach.  I included that too.

Here was the initial painting, still a few problems, although it has a plein air simplicity to it.   When I took the painting to the studio, the problem I addressed first was the color of the rocks on the jetty.   Ordinarily, there are three horizonal stripes of color on the jetty boulders.   The bottom of the rocks that spend the most time under water assume a destinctively green hue from a moss-like seaweed that clings to them.  The stripe above that, the middle level, is a combination of grays and golds with a tinge of rust.   The top stripe of the jetties tends to be a very light yellowish gray.  See the problem?  My painting did not match this color description.  I had been stroking in the boulders individually, not according to the water level color stripes.

Once the painting was dry again,  I used transparent color to make the three stripes of jetty color.  For the bottom, I used viridian warmed slightly with some cad yellow;  one big long glaze stroke along the bottom of the boulders.   For the middle stripe I do the same thing with raw sienna with some linseed oil.  After those were dry, I cap off the top rocks with an oily mixture of white/lemon yellow/cobalt blue.

OhPea Digging for his Stick

A strip of red seaweed has a fresh seaside aroma on day one.  This was day five, less fresh, but nonetheless very appealing to pets with their extra keen sense of smell.   I included my Grandpuppy OP digging at a stick in the seaweed.  To the left is the detail.

Far side jetty

Here is the detail of the far side jetty.

Here is a close up of a couple of the seagulls.  I 'm getting a better handle on making the stroke and leaving it alone.   I thought this was a good example of a few simple strokes that give the impression of seagulls soaring on misty ocean breezes.

See the "final" painting below.   I'm seldom completely happy with my execution of a painting and this one is no exception.   The placement of my puppy is too close to the bottom.   No doubt this was a result of not working out the complete composition at the beginning.   I really like that my "O" "P" is in it!

Palm Crosses

Palm Crosses Set-Up through View Finder

Last Sunday was Palm Sunday which for Christians, commemorates Jesus' entry into Jerusalem five days before his crucifixion.  Jesus rode a donkey (symbol of peace) into Jerusalem.   Celebrants lay down their cloaks in front of him, and also lay down small branches of palm trees, a custom for someone thought worthy of the highest honor in that era.

We crafted these small crosses from the fresh green palm we got last Sunday.  I was reminded when I saw the crosses on the kitchen counter that painters have used religious artifacts and symbology through the ages in their paintings.  I decided to include them in a subdued set up to capture the sad mood of Good Friday.  The final resting place for each palm cross will be our heavy mileage, household vehicles.  

The brown bottle was discovered in a wall during a renovation of our old house.   The bottle was labelled "Lashs Bitters."   A lavender kerchief is spread out under the set-up.

Rough In - Stage 1

The 8x8 inch canvas surface was relatively smooth.   I painted everything but the crosses at first because I wanted to paint them with the minimum number of clean strokes.

The palm had been moist and green on Sunday, the day the crosses were made, but even in a few short days had dried out and changed color.   The edges were still green, but the main palm surfaces looked like a pale Naples yellow.   

Color Mixture for Palm

I set up three piles of color for the palm.  The left mixture was cadmium green with a touch of cad yellow deep.  The middle pile was naples yellow with a touch of cad yellow deep and the right pile was the left mixture with a little cobalt blue.  I used a #4 flat to sweep up the middle mixture.  I then dabbed each corner of the brush into the other two green piles.   This was so that I could make one stroke that would have the main yellow in the middle and the green edging without having to go back touch it again.   This photo shows the yellow paint on the brush and the green on the edges of it.

Palm Crosses - Stage 2

Highlights Crosses and Bottle - Stage 3

Here I notice that the bottle looks flared out on the left, so I correct it.  As a last detail, I used my palette knife to scoop up all three piles of the palm greens and yellows.   I "drew" some wispy palm threads that had sprung out from the woven centers.

Palm Crosses and Brown Bottle

Chasing Butterflies Under Midday Clouds

Clouds at dawn and dusk are wonderful sights to behold.   They often have spectacular color, contrast and limitless shapes, making them one of my favorites.  The wide open nature of the coastline allows a panoramic view, light that dances off watery ripples and reflections of atmospheric yellows, pinks and even pale greens.    As much as I love dawn and dusk, it is much more likely that my painting session takes place during the day.

Painting at mid-day is sometimes maligned because light at overhead angles can cast harshly on subjects; shadows are shorter and darker.   Photographers greatly prefer the softer light of early morning or late afternoon, along with the dramatic, long shadows.

On a beautiful Spring day however, large puffy clouds with the sun overhead are particularly beautiful.   I decided to let the sky predominate in this canvas while minimizing the amount of canvas devoted to the actual subject and terrain - those presumed victims of the unflattering light.

I grab my two inch wide brush with the extra long handle and roughed in some shapes I liked by painting the negative, or sky blue spaces around my clouds-to-be.   I was using a mixture of cerulean blue and white.   As I moved toward the horizon, I gradually added a little more white and a very small amount of red to give the feeling of atmosphere and distance.

Backdrop - Clouds at Midday

I start back up at the top to work on the body of the clouds.   The closest clouds - and the biggest - that were overhead were placed at the top of the canvas.  To my sky blue mixture, I add a little cobalt and cadmium red light, which resulted in the medium gray needed for the body of the clouds.  Clouds change so quickly!     By now the original reference clouds are long gone, but I've locked in the shapes and will stick with them to the end.   I continued to scale down the size of the underside of the clouds as I worked down the canvas, closest clouds to furthest - top to bottom.    I made this grey mixture slightly lighter and bluer to help these clouds recede.  Next, I mixed yellow ochre, white and cadmium red to apply on the "flat" underside of the clouds, a warm reflection of the earth below.  

The next part of the clouds is the reward, painting the lacy lit edges around them.   I couldn't see the top of the biggest cloud above.    I could only see its underside and all the bright edges.   I gave this big cloud its frilly edges of light, but feathered the lit edges toward the center of the cloud, and keeping the outside edges more defined.   I continued edging the clouds, smaller, less distinct, and bluer all the way to the horizon.

The view of the clouds that were further away was more like a cross section, or side view.   I could see the narrow underside of bluish grey, the wispy sides, and the sunlit tops.

Now that I had a canvas with a bright, wide open sky, I continue the theme of space looking up a flowery hillside.  
With a one inch bristle house painting brush, I roughed in the green grasses with cadmium green, cadmium yellow deep, lemon yellow.   I then used the same brush to pick up some raw sienna and yellow ochre for dry grassy reeds over the green.


A group of children with butterfly nets raced across the wildgrasses to the patch of clover seeking butterflies I didn't see.  This boy reminded me of the thin, graceful and intense athleticism of my own boys at that age.