Daily Musings

February 28th.

The last day of the month and I was determined to finish on a high note after batting 100 through February, including some personally satisfying Dailies. A busy morning meant I wasn’t able to get out to paint until the afternoon, by which time the rain had set in. I found myself hunkered down in the back of the van in Dockyard, tackling the view of the tug “Powerful” and the busy goings on of the construction that is underway to refurbish the cruise ship dock. In a nutshell, it didn’t go well. The cranes were moving, as cranes do when they are doing craney things, the pilings were being swung around hither and yon, and the bands of rain coming across the sound radically changed the light, temperature and mood of the scene.  I include the painting for you to view, but it has since been scraped down.

Somewhat despondent, I headed towards home looking for an opportunity, anything really to help me capture something of the day. I pulled in just before crossing Watford Bridge and whipped off a dancing little scene in about 15 minutes flat. It’s looking towards Teddy Tucker’s house on the point next to Cambridge Beaches Hotel. Full on rain squalls by now, but the sky was surprisingly luminous, so much so that I kept having to mix progressively lighter “rain sky DNA”.  Although I was cramped in the van again and suffering with pins and needles as I knelt there, it was a freeing experience to dash out a moment in time. The previous 90-minute session at Dockyard had been such a laboured contrast.

February 27th.

I wandered up to the top of the hill at Cambridge Beaches Hotel, intending to paint Daniel’s Head in super calm conditions that made the small Island look as though it was levitating. However, when I got up there the wind had ruffled the water and the once indiscernible horizon was clearly visible again. I turned instead to some of the classic pink cottages and a buttery that are part of the hotel’s guest rooms. They made sharp, bright shapes framed against the turquoise sea beyond. I switched some of the angles of the buildings mid-way through, as although I had painted them situated as seen (I think!), it wasn’t believable.  Artist’s perks to move stuff around.

I .

February 26th.

I set up at Fort Scaur, on the emplacement of the 60 pound cannon which is on a Monrcreiff disappearing carriage. It was windy and I feared that if I was to take my usual several steps backward while painting, there would be a disappearing artist too. It was breezy and clear, so much so that I put a rock on my easel to hold it down. I chose a view with the sea out in the distance beyond Ely’s Harbour and The Scaur.  It was flooded with light as the sun got lower, leaving the values close together despite the distance and clarity. A huge scene and not much time to encapsulate it. My friends’ house, on the far ridge line of Wreck Hill, stood out. An amazing place with 360-degree views, it was a distant but prominent silhouette.  I got the values down pretty well, initially the recession reading, but I did fudge them a little later on when adding detail in to the ridge lines and the sun sank further and the mass of distant trees and roof lines lit up at the edges. I had tried to work in a narrow band of values. The theory goes that this helps harmony. Whistler kept his values low, Monet high (think of the light and colour in his shadows). This of course gives you less wiggle room. I actually added a few darker values in the foreground trees when I got home to help with depth, the first time I have tweaked after the location session this year. It was a brief 2-minute change.  The scene would make a good project for a large painting.

February 25th.

I made two failed starts yesterday. The first was two of the dogs curled up on the couch in a similar view to yesterday’s Daily of Jo. Of course, mid-way through the painting, they moved! The second attempt was also an interior but I lost concentration, it drifted, so I got off it. Finally, I went out to the front porch and worked on the warm shadows that were throwing an interesting pattern across the newly installed basket-weave brickwork. It is something that had caught my attention several days before and was in the “to do” list. The urn was reading very light with lots of bounced warm reflected light from the bricks, but I had to alter it while painting to a darker value in order to make it believable and save some bullets for the brickwork that was in full sun. So eventually today, a successful painting!

February 24th.

Jo was reading her iPad all cozy in a corner of the living room, backlit by one of the big old windows at Sea View. I used a panel that I had been unsuccessfully painting roses on the day before. I had scraped it down leaving a warm background to work on. A rose by any other name.

February 23rd.

I spent the morning painting the roses in the garden at home. However, after two attempts I called it quits, scraped down my efforts and went to lunch. Later in the afternoon I cycled around the bay and had a crack at an old favourite, the string of islands that make up King’s Point. The view lends itself to a very long landscape canvas, but it’s perfectly fine to take a small interesting section and work in a squarer format. The water was silver, with blue green tinges. Once again, paint what you see not what you think it should be. A muffled blanket of light grey cloud cover became warmer with streaks of light as I worked, and tied in nicely with the band of sand on the island at right. I shortened the distance between the two Islands in order to include the edge of this beach, after initially thinking I would simply include the Eastern edge of the tree-lined Island and a few of the rocks slipping into the water.

February 22nd.

I painted from a location close to the house that I had never tried before; an old dock that was once the Boaz Island ferry stop which is no longer in service. I took the van as it had been raining all day and I thought I would need to use the back as a “tent”.  It turned out not to rain and a soft grey light gradually cleared to a silver evening during the ninety minute session.  

There were several compositions that caught my attention, including a couple shown in these photos: the casuarina making a pleasing shape against a cool sky with a sliver of the Great Sound at its base; a jagged rocky point that was throwing up yellow greys during the low tide; a view from the dock into the shallows, a jumble of boulders and soft corals. Thankfully I didn’t choose this last scene, as you can see in the photo, the light changed, blanketing an oily sheen over the shallows and hiding what was once visible beneath. The problems of a location painter of time and tide!  

The view I settled on was of a neighbouring stone dock, all gnarly and barnacled with age, and a view beyond to what Jo and I call the “back road to Dockyard”. It’s part of our morning cycling route and takes you round Lagoon Park and rejoins the main Dockyard road after a meandering kilometre along the shores of the Great Sound.  

Back to the painting, and the task was to portray the feel of the prominent foreground dock with its rocky angular rusts and greys, then juxtapose it against that background containing a similar schematic.  Rather than greying out the entire background to emphasise atmospheric recession, the slight value shift I used seemed to do the trick. I still wanted to be able to include some interesting variations in the background – the feel of the road with its fencing and the ridge line of casuarinas – and I didn’t want to lose these elements in a singular greyed out backdrop. What had first caught my eye was the band of water behind the dock. It wasn’t a screaming bright turquoise, yet it glowed against the cool greys surrounding it. Towards the end of the piece I used a technique called sgraffito, an Italian term to describe the scraping into paint with the likes of the end of the paint brush handle or a palette knife, and possibly a flavour of ice cream 🙂  I applied this to add some harder verticals and horizontals for the telegraph wires and the top surface of the dock where it allowed my original warm underpainting, done in a hot orange/red, to show through.

February 21st.

I mooched around the top of Scaur Hill which has 360-degree views. I chose to tackle the edge of Bethel’s Island, one of the small barrier islands, where the shallow waters were throwing up sandy yellows and greens and the palms were making a pattern against the turquoise blue reefs in the distance. The island is now the home of Dr. Soares but used to be inhabited by a group of police officers who were my fellow rugby players a couple of decades ago.  I was having a blue day myself, as I am sometimes prone to do, and it was good to take my mind into another world.  A problem to solve. The irony was not lost on me that here I was standing amidst beauty and colour with all the time in the world, yet I felt devoid of energy and things appeared grey from within.  My spirits lifted as I worked on balance, harmony, shape and form.  There were several other interesting possibilities from Scaur Hill and I think I will return again soon. Some are going to be pretty challenging and will be hard for me to portray a convincing scene from that elevated position, but that is the whole idea of the project – push myself out of my comfort zone, work on my weaknesses and try new stuff.

February 20th.

I set out on the bike, along the coast and up the hill to West Side Road, with no particular plan other than to stop when something caught my eye. The view I chose was quite tricky to see from the verge so I put my easel as far into the lane as I dared (fortunately, it is a slow back lane). I simplified the background and greyed it out. I resisted the temptation to pick out the myriad of reds in the bush that was right next to me but rather observed its strong shapes biting into the right-hand side of the painting. A couple of people stopped and chatted while I worked away. A nice way to spend a couple of hours.

February 19th.

 A fairly complex composition of the path down to our neighbours’ house, Phil and Melony. I tend to struggle with pure parkland/vegetation scenes without a building or perhaps some water to anchor a focal point and provide contrast. I often charge in full of enthusiasm and the various greens become jumbled, the painting losing definition. A good exercise to practice improving on my weaknesses then!  I was pleased that the painting maintained its structure, variety and harmony today. It reads as bright and colourful, not because colour has been pushed so much as the purer brighter elements are singing against the greys and neutrals.  This is the kind of area that really excites me at the moment. I am pleased with the execution of the tree trunks with their shadows. They provide vertical solidity, there is variety in their observed colour tones and they help to make the viewer’s walk into the painting and down the track an interesting one.

February 18th.

 A clear and breezy day, with a super low tide. I was attracted to the bands of colour and how they relate to one another. Sand, rocks, shallows, reef, deep water, sky.  I zoomed right into the interface of the water’s edge and the beach in a second piece.  A close up. I completely forgot what I was painting. That’s good, because it means I was absorbed with the puzzle and unlocking its secrets. Edges, where one facet meets another. That most challenging and elusive of tasks. It’s not just about hard and soft, it can be a brush stroke, a value shift, a colour change. It’s a never ending and unachievable goal to nail. You can just try to get as close as you can and if the painting sits in harmony you did ok. I imagine in jazz parlance, it’s not the beat, it’s how you move from one note to the next

February 17th.

More bougainvillea investigation. I chose a heavily blossomed outer tendril and superimposed it against the sky to help concentrate the viewer on the shape and character of plant itself with minimal distraction.  It feels Japanese in design. After Japan took a pavilion at the Paris World fair of 1867, the Impressionists became enthralled with Japanese art and design.  Boiled down purity. Essence, simplicity, placement are the emotions that spring to mind. One could rearrange this image in 100 different ways, each time giving it a different emphasis.

February 16th.

Saturday 16th of February. After a busy day, my first attempt at a painting was in the late afternoon. I chose to paint the the bougainvillea while it is still so profuse, and the scene, with a fair few various interlocking bushes, was complex. Unfortunately, mid-way through the session it began to rain and droplets beaded up on the panel. Nothing to do but retreat indoors and return another day.

As an alternative, I set up in the little alcove next to my gallery where I can see the pink cottages and palms of Cambridge Beaches on the ridge line.  I chose a design that was predominantly sky, emphasizing this by turning the panel to a portrait orientation. It surprised me once again by how light the rain clouds actually read; a sort of yellow/light grey.  Afterwards, still in the same spot, I had a session on Eric the spindle palm just beyond the walled garden. He made for a nice silhouette against the neutral sky. Towards the end of the session, really late in the day at this point, the sky started to glow a little through the grey veil and I encapsulated a little of this.

February 15th.

Under my rain tent at Breezes again. I did a good amount of furniture rearranging in the initial block in. I wanted to include the edge of the cottage, the tree with reflection and the rocky point, on a square format. In reality it is much more elongated. The light was soft and cool with a hint of warm that continued to strengthen in the hour I was there. I stayed somewhat true to the initial atmosphere but nicked a bit of that light and warmth as it unfolded. What had principally attracted me to the painting was the casuarina breaking the band of light, its rippled reflections on calm water and the way the cottage had a hint of an edge where the roofline sort of disappeared into the sky.

February 14th.

Fifty Shades of Grey for Valentines Day!  I hunkered down in the van, ironically next to Grey’s Bridge, back to the weather, and tackled a casuarina-covered headland with the Southampton shoreline in the distance. On my initial block-in there were variations in the sky, but while I was painting they blanketed to a surprisingly light monochromatic grey. There was more yellow in them than I would have guessed; these are the things you learn when painting from life. I was tempted to add a solitary figure on the dock, perhaps fishing with a hardline, but decided it would be too distracting. There is a mere suggestion of a tie-up cleat there though.

February 13th.

Tucked in behind the bus shelter in Somerset Village for shade and protection from the brisk breeze. A lovely little cove here. I was attracted to the reconditioned vacation hut, formerly of 9 Beaches at Daniel’s Head, as it gleamed in the sunlight throwing a reflection into the shallows. It was a bit of a conundrum to portray the white roof, the bright blue siding and the two other blues of the sky and the distant turquoise water with all of the elements being so close together at the top right of the piece. I also did a major repaint of the lower half when I realised to my horror that I had covered all my enticing, nuanced water shallows with an out of control bay grape that was in danger of invading the whole painting rather than being a lead in. I scraped back, and reworked, being careful to keep the bay grape in check.

February 12th.

With a laundry list of jobs to do in town, I threw my painting gear into the van and took the opportunity to tackle a scene a little further from home along the beautiful South Shore. I set up on a prominent overlook with a view down towards Sinky Bay, one time location of the Sonesta Beach hotel and now the Hamilton Princess Beach club. It’s tricky to paint looking down onto something and make it read as true. Additionally, with the rock outcrop that had attracted my attention I was also aware that the more distant water above and behind it can often look as if it is coming over the top of the land mass if you don’t recede that water. This seems a particular issue when you have cropped out the sky or horizon.  I managed this conundrum to my satisfaction by greying the distant water and losing edges. I got very excited while working on this piece, but then went through a crestfallen period later in the process when I thought I had over worked it and lost some good earlier passages. This is not an unusual emotion and its inevitable that you will lose things and hopefully gain others. It never, or at least very rarely, goes perfectly in all departments. However, when I looked at it with fresh eyes at home later, I was satisfied to see that I still had a decent little painting.

February 11th.

Exactly the same spot that I painted last night but without staring directly into the sun. A glass calm day. The far water was reading as dark as you can see. It’s not cloud shadow but the turtle grass underneath that is eating the light. I’m happy to have pretty much nailed the tonal values and colour harmony. The easier that becomes the more  effort I can expend on the composition, the edges and trying to find that zone where the work is painterly and not wooden, yet have enough structural discipline that it retains weight and form. To me the painting reads as a clear, calm Winter’s day  (which is exactly what it was).  I’m not sure how or why it would differ on a hot Summer day but I intend to find out later in the year.

February 10th.

An early evening painting on the beach, looking directly into the sinking sun.  I had my hat brim pulled right down and shades on.  I could only glance at the glare for a fraction of a second at a time.  I was basically painting blind.  I didn’t really know what I had on the canvas until quite late on in the painting when a cloud covered the sun, allowing my eyes to adjust.  I tried to stay true to what I saw and felt and not what I perceived I was looking at.  It was an interesting exercise and quite mentally freeing.  I was surprised how much I had pushed the reds in the centre of the landmass.  Bounced light from the sea.  I’m glad I added the section of the beach at the bottom and for me, the tone there reads true.  Humbly and not wishing to compare myself with Monet, It reminds me of the paintings he did in the early 1920s when he was suffering with cataracts.  His haystack paintings at sunset had a lot of red chroma in them too.

February 9th.

Another crack at the bougainvillea in that garden, but looking in towards the statue this time.  It’s so profuse right now, it’s a shame not to use it as a muse for a while. I don’t seem to be as adept at “saying more with less” when tackling jungly garden scenes as I am with water paintings. The more you stand there, the more you see in the shadows and it’s hard to know how far to go in. To this end, I rationed myself to one large flat head brush and a smaller partner to pick out a few details towards the end. I got some good structure right off the bat and have managed to not completely overwork the piece, but there are still a lot of brushstrokes going on! I like the piece and it’s personal, a favourite part of the garden and the contemporary twist on a Palladian subject with a smattering of impressionism amuses me too. I will likely turn to the subject again.

February 8th.

I took a mid-afternoon bicycle ride on one of those windless days where the sea and the sky merge together  on the horizon. It was a perfect day to search out reflections and try to understand the oily quality of still water. I set up in the Village with a view across the shallows to the beach, with its line of punts and the reflection of the old armoury building, which in recent times has been home to the Village Post Office.  The anchor boys were busy playing dominoes and the Country Squire pub was livening up with the start of the weekend. The happy sounds faded into the recesses of my mind as I entered that part of the brain that absorbs colour and shape. I chose a vertical format and homed in on the Rothko like horizontal bands  created by the beach and reflections.  I made the decision to crop out the post office and include a punt in the foreground. It was incredibly gratifying today to be part of the pageantry of a lazy afternoon  in a small village in the middle of the Atlantic. I cycled home in a contented daze.

February 7th.

Mangrove Bay Road, a hop, skip and a jump from the front gate. Spring arrives early in Bermuda and the sub-tropical foliage is starting to burst out of garden hedgerows and into the street. I waited until the very end to add the jaunty telephone pole, undecided whether to add it or not. I could have gone either way but in the end I’m a sucker for a pole or a mast. There were some tall palms in the background too but I decided that they would have been too much.

February 6th.

A return to an old haunt, Flatts Inlett. I cut my teeth here as a newbie plein air painter some 25 years ago. It’s chock full of subject matter. A target-rich environment festooned with eye candy.  Despite this, things were not fluid today. Years on I know more, but counterintuitively this can make things more problematic.  The water runs in and out of the inlet, setting up a new schematic every few minutes. You really need to choose your theme and stay with it. When I got back home and looked at my effort, the aqua green picnic boat hull which was my central subject looked flat and insipid. I reworked it in a darker hue and suggested a lighter area curving around the bow.  That made it sit better in the water and gave it some volume.

February 5th.

A busy morning meant missing the ideal early weather and it wasn’t until late afternoon that I had a clear run at a painting session. In haste, I packed the van and headed out to Heydon Road, where I could see several miles across the Great Sound to Southampton on the distant shore.  Frankly, I was tired and not expecting much in the way of magic. I zoomed in on the large shape of the Southampton Princess where its abstract rectangle on the horizon was being lit by the sun sinking in the west. With a little stage management, I brought the lighthouse a bit nearer so I could incorporate it into the scene. That far away, across the water on a muggy day, the tonal values were so close.  A subtle shift or intensification of colour would shout rudely across the water.  I had to treat gently.  The homes on the hillside were disappearing into the mass of the hill, then shyly reappearing as bands of light passed across the land. When I finished, I was impressed, yet faintly forlorn with the effort.  It looks so “grown up”.  The values are spot on.  The island in front of the land reads true and the faint hint of light cast on its trees gives it volume even from so far away.  The water is believable, and you can sail your eye to the far shore.  The gestural squiggles of greys and off-whites are a myriad of Bermuda houses.  The hard edge of the hotel on the skyline accentuates the tree-lined ridge. It doesn’t have any of my trademark punchy colour and contrast, aside from perhaps some rich hues in the water.  But, looking back at the work so far this year, many of the pieces are trending this way and I guess this is where my journey is going right now.  It’s a cool ride.

February 4th.

The bougainvillea in the garden is doing its thing. I set up underneath some of its impressive tendrils festooned with blossoms and went to work picking out shapes and learning the structure of the plant. I edited out the background with a neutral grey to focus the eye on the subject at hand. I traced the twisting branches with a loose but deft brush and tried to convey the volume of the flowers. I substituted their colour to a hot rich pink after chasing around the palette and failing to convey the brightness of the purple. They come in a variety of colours so I was happy to do the switcheroo. I worked up the square piece first and was quite taken with the challenge so continued on with the second piece. The whole thing has a sort of Asian vibe to it, with the calligraphy like mark-making, and the highly coloured blossoms.

February 3rd.

Effort number one of the banana trees in the garden was abandoned mid-way through the process.  Tactical retreat there today, but I will go back and get my fill of banana painting on a future date. 

I  repositioned myself in the canopy of shade that arches over the side path and painted the light flooding round the corner, illuminating the “match me if you can” bush. There was a lot going on in the undergrowth, loads of twisting vines and a myriad of leaves and wandering branches. The composition was strong, but I noticed that the painting had gone off the boil, with too much detail. I resolved this by scraping back several areas with a palette knife, leaving a suggestion of what was there.

February 2nd.

Looking towards the small islands of King’s Point from the slip road that heads down to Mangrove Bay public dock.  It was a clear, bright Saturday morning, and a few vehicles parked on the dockside and the empty moorings indicated that people were making the most of the weather and had headed out on the briny.  It was an ambitious composition to take on and I rather laboured the piece, in part because people stopped and chatted – this is good, it’s a solitary life being an artist!  But it meant my focus drifted for a while.  I tidied up the piece later at home, and although I lost some soft edges, it gained some depth.

I also spent a couple of hours working on the incomplete pieces from the earlier plein are sessions that are shown here too.

February 1st.

New month!  A late afternoon start after a day on the bicycle found me tramping around the property for something close to home. I picked the overgrown path that takes you from the house down to the water. There is an enticing glimpse of the turquoise ocean through the palms and tangled undergrowth. I got myself in a fix mid way through the painting as the sun sank lower and the shards of light got richer. My eye had been fooled by these bright slithers of light and I had made the ground plane as dark as the shadows of the uprights (trees). I brought the values up in the ground, looking for pink/blue varieties, and and the scene came to life.