Daily Musings

October 31st.

Happy Halloween. Wow, the year of Dailies has made it through ten months!

It was South Shore again today. I took a wander around the beaches initially, to get close up with the rocks and the shore. I opted instead to return to the coast road and paint big vistas in miniature again, a subject that’s occupying me at present. That big expanse of water or sky filling the senses. How to portray that flat plane in its emotional fullness? How to make the water sparkle, or to show a moving sheen of transparent grey. I worked up two pieces and the second, slightly larger, will be a submission for the plein air festival exhibition. The session required patience and self-control to stop and wait when light changed. It’s tempting to crack on and guess, but then the connection can be lost. Learned a lot today.

October 30th.

The plein air festival location was in town today, but I felt the need to be away from humanity and by the sea, so I opted for a warmup session overlooking the South Shore, which is the specified location for tomorrow. It took me a while to settle on a spot as I cruised up and down the beautiful coastline in search of solitude. I ended up at a lay-by I hadn’t visited before, just behind Warwick camp, overlooking one of the many small coves near Warwick Long Bay. I set to work recording the curve of the rocks and trying to capture the feel of the waves, with their various tapestry of bright turquoise hues, as they rolled into the shallows.

October 29th.

All the way to St George’s for day three of the Bermuda Plein Air Festival.  I arrived in spotty rain, so rather than searching out a suitable vista in the back alleys of the Olde Towne, I reversed the van up to the edge of the harbour, lifted the tailgate, and created my own weather-proof painting stance. I stayed for several hours and completed three paintings, foregoing lunch to crack on and record the changing elements. The first painting I have held back as a short list for the festival completion. The other pair, which were painted second and third, picked up on the clearing skies and increasing chroma. There were several large catamarans in the harbour, some of them pulling up very close to where I was working to take on fuel and check in. It made me sad initially, after the recent loss of our own beautiful catamaran “Jonah’s Whale” in the Abacos, but as I worked and concentrated, my spirits lifted and I was happy for the sailors who were likely en route to the Caribbean.  Live in the moment, move on, create!

October 28th.

The second day of the plein air festival. The group of fifty or so participating artists met up at the impressive old property of Sandymount that sits majestically over a bluff looking down on Bailey’s Bay and out across North Shore.  It was bright but windy.  After tramping around the area for twenty minutes, I selected to paint a corner of the property as a warmup. The house is a natural cement colour with raw cedar woodwork. I left out some features and put in a glimpse of the sea in the background that wasn’t visible from my vantage point but I knew was there.   For the second piece, now looser and zoned in, I painted the view of the peninsula on the other side of the bay and out to distant Somerset where I live.  I stayed on into the afternoon and completed another slightly larger piece, then went home to rest!

October 27th.

The plein air festival began today and the selected venue was fortuitously out here in the West end, at Scaur Hill. I painted for most of the day as well as a short session in the early evening, and have selected two of the completed works as dailies. The first is from the top of the hill looking West onto the reefs, and the second is from the fortifications orientated towards Somerset Bridge. I had a few problems with dialing in the recession of the bright water and did a little remedial work back at the studio during a midday lunch break. Lunch was brief!

October 26th.

A view along the shore towards Cambridge Beaches. The piece got a little busy and drifted somewhat, partially intentional as I set out to stay loose and not focus in on too many edges in such a busy composition. The Bermuda Plein Air Festival week starts tomorrow, bright and early, and runs for a week. I have entered and will double gig in an effort to continue with my Dailies as well as paint for the Festival at the specified locations.

October 25th.

Some friends are away for a couple of days and we are feeding their cats. They have a home with a lovely elevated view over Mangrove Bay and I took my gear up there to complete the daily while we kept the mogs company for an hour. Cambridge Beaches off on the far side of the bay was catching the right of the setting sun, as were some of the boats. Things happen fast as the light changes at this time of the day, so I had to fill in a few of the gaps from memory as the light faded and the stars came out.

October 24th.

Big brooding stuff out on the horizon, the water flat and windless, almost monochrome but for hints of reefs below. A solitary fishing boat cutting across the picture, headed for home and away from the weather. Despite, or maybe because of, the close values and vast empty scene, small shifts in colour and shape as the clouds drift and reassemble effect big changes on what’s in front of me. Remember to stick to the meat of the plan and not chase these metamorphoses.

October 23rd.

I tackled this view ten years ago, the last time I undertook the painting a day project. I seem to remember feeling it was one of the best pieces of the year back then. Today it didn’t flow from the get go, but I think it came out okay in the end. It was really hot for so late in the year, and I was somewhat distracted by sweat and flies in my eyes. I rode to the spot along the Railway Trail which is still littered with fallen trees from the recent hurricane, though there is enough room for a bicycle and trailer to squeeze through. I enjoyed the ride down, winding through the foliage. The scene feels really iconic; kind of Wyeth-esque. a piece of history frozen in time. I went pretty deep inside myself while I painted here today, as one should when concentrating and creating. I know this because later in the studio it freed up my mind. Ironically, I was painting very contemporary, abstracted colour-field studies. More Katz than Wyeth; but the meditation and effort of reaching into myself and accessing the artistic state of consciousness is what I mean. Edges, spatial and colour relationships. I think the slow repetitive motion of cycling assists in unlocking the door to my mind too.

October 22nd.

Weather stuff was happening offshore and moving towards me as I painted this afternoon. I used the skinny spit of land and the channel marker as a lead in and to add scale to the scene. Way off in the distance, I could initially see the North East Cut beacon, but it disappeared as the rain moved on shore. I left a faint suggestion of it as the clouds darkened.  It occurred to me that the most drama is to be had looking from outside into a weather system. Once it engulfs you, things generally turn a more uniform lighter grey. Unless you are on a boat of course, then there is still plenty of drama to be had.

October 21st.

Orientated towards Somerset Long Bay, a view I have painted in various guises a fair few times. It was mid-morning so there were still foreground shadows to break up the near distance. I spent perhaps a little too much time on the far shore, adding quite a lot of detail, so went back and simplified later on. In another painting, I could edit yet more out and recede it even more. There was a lot of top light on the bushes in the foreground, but I found that dialing them back allowed the eye to travel into the painting with less distraction. There were a couple of people on rental boats that came and went for a swim while I was working; I added one for scale, sense of place and interest.

October 20th.

Squares within squares. Looking into the interior of Sea View. I turned a light on deeper inside for a focal point/reward. Interestingly, although my eye read the warms, the camera on the iPhone wasn’t able to pick it up.

October 19th.

I set up to do a painting of the red excavator in the garden, but instead chose have a go at the detail of a palm tree next to it. I find portraying foreground neutrals juxtaposed against other neutrals in the background, like in this painting, one of the most challenging areas of my work. Everything was backlit too, with the edges glowing.  To boot, there was the complicated hedge that had light shining through it. I had to take my yellow t-shirt off and paint topless as the bounced light on the panel made it unreadable.

October 18th.

The big ficus tree here at Sea View has a million different abstract views to offer up. Ive shied away from it until now, not knowing quite how to tackle it as it goes on for ever.  Just a few hundred thousand more to do now.

October 17th.

Rain stops play outdoors. I set up a still life in the studio. I painted my brushes with some other brushes in a painting with a backdrop of another painting. More art imitating life.

October 16th.

A trio of tall palms on the edge of Sea View. I have painted them before, I like the motif. This time, I chose to place them fairly low on the canvas that was orientated to portrait. I still wanted to give them the feeling of height despite their lowly position on the canvas, so I incorporated the cloud pattern behind them, as well as darkening the blue sky towards the top. Broken brush strokes and mid-tone greys, rather than going too dark, allowed me to give the feel of light filtering around the edges of the palms and avoid that “cardboard cutout” look.

October 15th.

I happened across this intriguing corner next door at the hotel. It caught my eye despite the raggedy post storm elements and the large white gas tank. The way the light was striking multiple edges of the buildings and streaming through the banana plants appealed. With a little stage management, it could have been the same view two hundred years ago. I had to work quickly as the lowering sun moved the light shafts and enriched the colours and I was pleased to find that sweet spot, not getting bogged down with labouring edges and over-refining shape. At the same time, the underlying structure was still there and the painting didn’t fall apart.  Likewise, as I hurriedly added some of the highlights and texture with a loaded  palette knife, the scene still danced and the balance of thinly applied under-painting and more textural notes remained in harmony. It’s busy, but to me, works.

October 14th.

I cycled out to the other side of the bridge with Daisy and the Snail, looking along the shoreline for something interesting to paint. I settled on a view of Woody’s Drive-In, an iconic local restaurant/bar. The view was fairly complex. All cubes of colour and shadow. I chose not to include the dock which had been my initial intention so I could home in on the interlocking blocks of the buildings and the stripy marquee.

October 13th.

Almost a nocturne! Looking towards the sea from the garden through the palms and other foliage. Recording sensory data as the light changed rapidly in the fading light. Blues becoming oranges, peaches and pinks as the foreground appeared ever darker with red greens and edges were lost.

October 12th.

After a long day of clean up in the garden, we had a couple of friends over for a drink and as a result it was dark before I got to the easel. I had been meaning to try a nocturne and there was a big full moon rising through the scattered cloud. I set up on the porch with minimal ambient light and painted semi-blind. you can’t see exactly what you are doing in such light conditions and only have a rough idea of what’s going down by knowing where the paint is on the palette and a rough reading of the tone. It’s an unveiling when you take the painting into the light. Since I had lens replacement surgery I get a few funky colours and halos around lights at night, so I don’t know if that makes what I see different to what others see.

October 11th.

Continuing on with sea/sky effects. Working in a limited tonal range, but still trying to expand on the variety and nuance within those parameters. The odd boat was passing by, throwing out a wake that rolled towards shore, and I selected to include this, slicing a palette knife through the ocean.

October 10th.

Chasing clouds and weather systems across the sky as I spent a second day at the beach in between rain showers. This morning I ended up scampering a few feet to my right between brush strokes, to view the sky from round a tree, after the light filtering through the clouds wandered off that way.  Free exercise 🙂

October 9th.

A quick rendering out to sea as the rain moved in this evening. This was a twenty-minute effort. Sometimes they take two hours. Time spent bears no relation to success or failure, with the proviso that if you spend too long there is likely a problem. It’s about capturing the rhythm of the scene and that can be a brief energetic oil sketch or a more involved investigation, but it still should be fresh.

October 8th.

Down to the sea. Capturing small squares of ocean to be used as information for larger abstracted paintings in the studio. Happy accidents, caused by an errant brush with a raggedy edge or a clumsy hand movement, are left and embraced. The moment of time being encapsulated all the better for imperfections and interpretive mark-making.

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October 7th.

Windfall still-life. One of the many coconuts laying around the property courtesy of hurricane Humberto. I used the larger painting on the easel as a backdrop.

October 6th.

Painted through a porthole. A corner of Sea View with one of the tall quirky chimneys throwing shadows across the newly power-washed roof line. Cools and warms in the shadows.

October 5th.

Eschewing the outside, another sneaky session in my studio. It’s just so good to be home and grounded after all the travel. Dogs at my feet. Tom Waits for company. My mind turning towards larger studio based work. Ideas. Floods of blues. Warms, oranges. Complimentary colours. Spatial tension. Stripped down subjects. Free of clutter to stare into depths. Edges. Shimmering, shifting, disappearing. Fluid.

October 4th.

There was a lot of running back and forth today to hang our exhibition at Gallery 117, where I exhibited fifty of the Dailies. As a result, I opted to paint in the studio during a break, rather than out in the heat. I used a previous Daily for a concept and added some of the numerous post hurricane yard birds as I was running around like a headless chicken.

October 3rd.

A view I have painted a few times, a morning view looking South from the end of the beach, very close to where I painted the rocks yesterday evening. It didn’t flow this morning initially. I scraped out and painted sections, particularly the shoreline bushes on the left that have been ravaged by the recent storm.  The tide rose and I ended up standing in the water, my bag and paint box wet, but I stuck to the wicket engrossed in the process. When I got back to the studio, what I thought was a bit of a duffer actually looked pretty successful. Some of the tones are more subtle with less contrast than much of my usual work.

October 2nd.

Exploring the rocks at low tide. I was facing a sinking sun that heightened the contrasts.  The subject blurs the line between abstraction and representation.

October 1st.

Tools of the trade.