We it a tad cold out but the sun is shining brightly and the sky is blue and it is starting to warm up. That's one thing about New Mexico that I love - we get on average 320 sunny days a year - I lived in New England for 50 years and my memory says New England get 320 CLOUDY days a year.
When we start our RV adventure this April, one of our slogans will be
"FOLLOW THE SUN AND FIND THE BEACHES"
After doing my painting yesterday a fellow RV-er commented that although I said it was snow, the painting reminded her of the sand dunes where she grew up. Soooooooo I decided today I would do a same size 8x16 painting and make it an ocean scene with sand dunes.
My DW Melissa and I love the ocean and being in the Southwest, we've been away from it for 11 years now and part of our RV adventure is to get us back to the ocean. We lived on the ocean in Maine for many, many years and before that we used to go down to Cape Cod and spent time in the Wellfleet area.
This painting was done in the same fashion as the one yesterday - same size - same techniques and same brushes. Done wet into wet and down with expression- emotion - spontaneity using quick staccato strokes with my Fan brush - the sky of course was done with my big TVH brush ( I love that brush!)
First --- my partners in the creation process:
OK --- now "OCEAN DUNES"
8 X 16
HOLY CRAP -- look what I found a piece of heavy linen paper with nothing on it - could this be what they mean by a BLANK PALETTE??????
OK - now time to throw in a sky with my beloved TVH brush.
Being an ocean scene the sky needs to be several shades of blue - the ocean blue -- the sky being blue feed off of one another and this is why the ocean and sky seems so much bluer at the ocean! This is truth I speak!!!
You notice I throw a few hints of blue down into the area where the dunes will appear - this is called local color - all colors within an area bounce off one another and leave a little piece of each other ON each other - LOCAL COLOR Without it everything would be bland and BLAH!!! This is also truth I speak!!!
OK - time for my imagination and my trusty Fan brush to begin the creation process. I really have no idea what-where-how the ground clutter is going to go - I just know in my minds eye that I've spent many a day, week, month, year(s) at the ocean and I can see the ocean - I've been away from it for the most part of 11 years - but trust me I CAN SEE IT!!!!
I'm not going to go into detail regarding the creation process of the ground clutter - suffice it to say that very quick staccato strokes, mostly in an upward direction is what creates the ground clutter. The other entities in the creation process is emotion- expression and the freedom om spontaneity
BAM - in goes the beginning of the ocean!
I FORGOT TO CROP THE FINISHED PAINTING SO I'LL BE BACK IN ONE MOMENT!!! :>)
HI I'm back - that took no time at all now did it! :>)
TAAAAA DAAAAAA
Staccato - emotion - expression - strokes with the fan brush
At this time, I also put in the indication of some slight wave action in the ocean towards the shore line. Just an indication - remember LESS IS MORE!!!
For the ( "I like to look close up Blog Buddies",) a couple of close-up detail photos of the ground clutter and wave action.
I hope my RV friend likes this and it is more visually "OCEAN DUNES."
