Back to Duxbury Beach Facing North

Duxbury Bay Facing North Stage 1

Last week I described a paint-out where I stood at the top of a beach crossover in Duxbury and did a painting facing west toward the Standish Monument, then a painting facing east, the Atlantic Ocean.   This post describes a new painting facing north, not quite from the same spot as the other two paintings, but standing on the northwest end of the parking lot on the bay side looking toward the Duxbury Beach Bathhouse.   

My underpainting was a bit bold, a can of Pastene crushed tomatoes and two vine ripe tomatoes from a still life class a few months ago. The background for this painting was a horrid purple.   This muddy purple actually made a nice underpainting for this mostly cloudy day.



Duxbury Bay Facing North Stage 2

The sky was a beautiful combination of muted lavenders, pinks, blues and whites.   The dune grasses were dried out at this point, a warm naples yellow.   It was low tide so the sand was visible in the distance on bay side shore near the bathhouse.   The two brightest spots in the scene were the second floor windows of the bathhouse and a white house on the edge of the marsh.   They weren't consistently bright, but when the sun periodically peeked through, they stood out the most to me.



A woman who had been observing from her car said she and her husband couldn't imagine what I was painting as they didn't see two "pumpkins" anywhere in the area (she was talking about the tomatoes in my underpainting.   I explained my recycling of the canvas and she noted that one minute the "pumpkins" were there and the next minute they were gone.    That was because I used my big pastry brush to paint the large area of wild dune grasses right toward the end.

Just like with the previous Duxbury Crossover paintings, I am going to add the foreground goldenrod after a few days of drying so that they are bright, clear and uncontaminated by layers of wet paint.

Sand that Glows in Black and White and Torrit Grey

My Torrit Gray Palette - White, Torrit Gray and Black

The Gamblin Artist's Oil Colors company is an industry leader in the manufacture of oil colors.   There are many reasons that I like these paints so much.   They are buttery, true to color and are made in the USA.   If I have a question about mediums or the characteristics of paint, I consult their website, http://www.gamblincolors.com/.   

Gamblin demonstrates their environmental conscience by running an annual art contest revolving around the color "torrit gray."

From their website:

If you took all the pigments in the color spectrum and mixed them together, what color would you make? Every spring, Gamblin Artists Colors collects a wealth of pigments from our Torit® Air Filtration system. We filter the air around the areas where we handle dry pigments so that our workers are not exposed to pigment dust. Rather than sending any of our high quality, expensive pigments into the landfill, Gamblin paint makers recycle them into "Gamblin Torrit Grey". "Pigment dust should not go into the earth, water or landfill, but into paint," says Robert Gamblin.

The mix of pigments is different every year, so Torrit Grey is always unique and will never be repeated. Torrit Grey tends to have a greenish tinge because of the great strength of the Phthalo Green pigment, which is a dark bluish green. Torrit Grey varies from a medium dove grey to a dark earthy grey.

They are now dating the tubes, so artists can collect them from year to year and enjoy the unique qualities of each edition.

The Torrit Grey store promotion, which runs each year through the end of April in celebration of Earth Day, not only recycles pigment dust into paint but focuses artists on the importance of recycling, studio and environmental safety. Complimentary 37ml tubes of Torrit Grey are distributed to those who purchase $20 worth of Gamblin oil colors.   Last year, they distributed more than 11,000 tubes of Torrit Grey!  It was remarkable what artists can achieve with a color palette limited to white, or black and Torrit Grey.

The Torrit Grey Painting Competition, conducted annually in the Fall, attracts more entries every year. Artists make a value based painting using only Torrit Grey and any black or white oil paint. The competition is judged by Robert Gamblin and the winners receive a supply of Gamblin Artists' materials.

After the winners were selected, all the entries were posted on their website and a few weeks after that, three tubes of Gamblin Fastmatte oil paint arrived in the mail as a participation gift.

You can see the winning entries from the previous contest at Torrit Grey Winners.   My entry this year is a monochromatic version of a painting I did a few months ago of the wet sand reflecting the beach houses.

Sand that Glows in Black and White and Torrit Grey