Daily Musings

September 30th.

Bathers floating in the water. Surreal Bermuda Summer icon. Abstract. Trippy.

September 29th.

Eric, still standing after Hurricane Humberto.

September 28th.

A couple sitting on beach chairs in the shallows allowed me the opportunity to play with colourfield and abstraction. Perhaps an idea for a studio painting that could be enlarged to several feet.

September 27th.

The grounds at Sea View are a wreck after Hurricane Humberto blew through. There are many trees down and it’s been pretty depressing living amongst the mess in the post-hurricane high humidity. The air has cleared now and the gardeners have made a good start. The sky was blue today and all the leaves have turned autumnal colours. The sun was bouncing off the side of the house and everything was glowing in warm tones.

September 26th.

Another painting from a painting, this time taking a section from a daily completed earlier in the year and putting a different slant on it. This is helping me brush up on my studio work that I am struggling with after spending most of the time out on location.

September 25th.

Outside was ugly in the weather department so I set up in the studio and wandered around picking up various props to attempt a still life. I was distracted by a problem painting on the easel and opted to take a section of it and develop it into a loose study. A painting from a painting. It did the trick, because on completion of the daily I went on to attack the large painting. Simplifying and loosening it, in the manner of the daily.

September 24th.

With a new tropical system bearing down on us I painted a suitable still life inside the studio; a lemon and an avocado from the millions that were stripped from our trees during Hurricane Humberto last week.

September 23rd.

As the outer bands of Tropical Storm Jerry move towards us I painted towards the west, with Daniels Head in the background. The first greys and the evening light still filtering through at this early stage.

September 22nd.

I returned to the beach, after several months away, and painted the point that was pushing out a lot of yellows in the foliage as a result of recently passed Hurricane Humberto.A few days ago, I was cursing gouache after switching to oil. These past two days I have returned back to oil and am somewhat missing the gouache. It’s what you get familiar with I suppose.

September 21st.

The grounds here at home, torn apart by Hurricane Humberto. Don’t know where to start in the tangled carnage.  Paint it.

September 20th.

I didn’t get the opportunity to paint today but just to show I wasn’t a complete slacker, a little random sketching on board the flight to Bermuda 🙂

September 19th.

A third session in the hayfield next to our lodgings. I’ve enjoyed these sessions. Back to Bermuda tomorrow with a heavy travel itinerary moving ourselves and the three dogs…we will see.

September 18th.

Another session in the hayfield. I’m enjoying working with a simple stripped-down motif where I don’t get too sidetracked with perspective and complicated drawing. Instead I am free to explore design, drama and emotion with these minimal elements.

September 17th.

The sun setting on the hay field beside the hotel. The colours got deeper and the field ended up all in shadow by the time I had finished.

September 16th.

Somewhere on the edge of vast fields, outside an Ibis hotel, under the big skies of Northern France.

September 15th.

The planters filled with flowers in the garden. I didn’t make much of a plan, just sort of zoned out and made marks on the panel as the colours and shapes infiltrated my mind.

September 14th.

The reflection of a boat and its buoy painted from the terrace here at LRB. I’ve painted a few similar views earlier in the trip with oils. I think this is the first in gouache. I avoided muddiness, ironically as the river here sure is muddier than the turquoise water back home in Bermuda. The yellows and greens of the water are intriguing though and I find them pretty elusive.

September 13th.

Went up t’hill and painted this line of trees lining a field of cut straw. The abstract nature of the view is what caught my eye.

September 12th.

I had to do some extra work on this one after I left the location. That’s a first, I think. A good start got muddied. The composition was okay, so I didn’t want a do over. I was using a large brush whose head was a little savaged from previous use and as a result it was tricky to scoop out the paint from the containers. As a result, I got in a pickle with laying down colour and tone. I reworked it afresh as soon as I got home and I had cleaned up my gear, while the image was still fresh in my memory.

September 12th.

I had to do some extra work on this one after I left the location. That’s a first, I think. A good start got muddied. The composition was okay, so I didn’t want a do over. I was using a large brush whose head was a little savaged from previous use and as a result it was tricky to scoop out the paint from the containers. As a result, I got in a pickle with laying down colour and tone. I reworked it afresh as soon as I got home and I had cleaned up my gear, while the image was still fresh in my memory.

September 11th.

Continuing with my sometimes fractious relationship with gouache, I selected to paint a view very similar to one I had completed recently in oil. It helped to have a familiar mental framework and I endeavoured not to get bogged down in detail but rather treat the whole. A better day.

September 10th.

We enjoyed a good bracing walk with the dogs along the estuary at low tide. I brought my painting gear with me and set up afterwards on the stone beach with Jo and the pack as company. A good start, of the shallows and sea gulls with a beached boat in the background, sort of meandered and didn’t really hold together. Not my best hour at the easel. I wouldn’t buy it but maybe someone likes the results so here it is!

September 9th.

Rain was threatening, so rather than root around and set up my gouache gear, I opted for one last quick oil. Too late! 20 minutes in, I got nailed by weather. I kept the half-worked piece though and show it here. I liked what was already there. In the afternoon I did set up my gouache and painted the planters from the sun room as it poured outside. Of course, half an hour later a rainbow and then the sun came out.

September 8th.

The field at the top of the hill just beyond the town. I have painted here a few times on the trip; a few weeks ago it was the big rolls of hay, another time looking down towards the village and the bridge. This time it was about sky, the Autumn, space. At some stage I’d like to paint in one location for a year to record the seasonal changes and moods.This is likely my final oil painting of this trip as we are back on the road again soon and gouache will be more suitable for rapid drying.

September 7th.

I ended up back at the park and the tree lined pathway, though a little further along and facing the other way. I hadn’t intended to, and scouted out a couple of other locations that didn’t appeal for one reason or another before I settled here. Working in the Autumnal palette again, and if anything, a trickier view with the ambiguous faded background, I took a long time over this piece. Perhaps too long, reworking things that may have been just fine. It was a good educational session for me. There was a boules tournament in the park today and my vista filled up with cars parked as I worked. I had enough from my block-in though and just added a figure walking down the lane with a suitable red jersey to tie in with the colour scheme of the leaves.

September 6th.

A tree lined path in the park. The air is fresh with Autumn and the leaves are turning. This was a complex view to tackle and I’m happy with the result and that I managed to keep it all together. Jo is often amused that when she asks me how my painting has gone, she generally gets a negative response. She didn’t today 🙂  We are our own hardest critics.

September 5th.

I painted one of the buoys and the reflections in the calm of the marina. I tend to gravitate towards these buoy and water images when I am struggling with my painting or with life in general. Looking at it now a day later, it looks confused and discombobulated. Art imitating life?

September 4th.

I rode pretty deep into the woods along trails that are somewhat familiar from walking the dogs. Still down in the dumps about the loss of our liveaboard boat and the terrible damage on the Abaco, the original intention had been to find a quiet spot by the nearby river to paint. However, once encapsulated in the forest, it felt healing, so I stopped and set up there amongst the tall pines and table of foliage.

September 3rd.

Feeling discombobulated and all at sea after the tragic events from Hurricane Dorian. The images, the reports… Man-O-War Cay, where we kept our beloved liveaboard catamaran, our special place, all smashed into the stone age. The weeks and months spent there rocking and dozing in the warmth of the sun and the people. Friends. Broken. Today I painted boats. Numb.

September 2nd.

The sailboats moored in front of Sarah B, our local restaurant/pub that’s in an old sailing loft.  Meshing together little prisms of sunlight and shadow, reflection and shape. Pulling it into a busy, happy composition but not developing too much so as to lose the dreamy spontaneity.

September 1st.

I headed up to paint the view from the bridge some 55 meters above the river. A tender back meant using the car rather than hiking or riding. I set up overlooking the town on the far bank below, then at the last moment opted to turn 180 degrees and paint the view of the fields behind me as the light was fading. I often don’t know why I make these last minute choices. It’s just instinctive and I go with the flow, a passenger on the subconscious express.