Grassy Side of the Harbor

Grassy Side of the Harbor

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One side of this Scituate waterfront scene was an industrial plateau of trucks, granite, hot top and metal railings, while the opposite side was a lush, verdant and overgrown jungle.  For this plein air painting, no-brainer; I let the marshy green side dominate!    I did not paint fast enough to capture the high tide at the start in which the tallest boats and dock cranes were breaking the horizon line.   By the time their turn came, the water level had dropped them into a less dramatic position.  That's the challenge of painting live-and-in-person - change can be hard!  haha.

If you are interested, enlarge the dock scene.  The rope barrels, traps and fishing gear in the mid-distance which looked - in person - like a congested collection of chaos, would have to be tamed into a coherent and recognizable element of the painting.   It was an exercise in discipline.  How to make this complex part of the scene look realistic without too much tedium?  It took three steps.  1) Several colorful dots were applied in a straight horizontal line, 2) their colors were then pulled down into the (already painted) water below for reflection, and 3) a long narrow dark stroke cut through that for the underside of the dock.   A typical New England dock in an abstract sort of way.

Besides painting, the most pleasant part was observing the ducks wade around.   Their preference was also the green side - that is until the people with stale bread appeared at the parking rail.