Tuesday 25 August 2015

shrimpers passing - 36x18"


This photo's a little darker on the right side.......with the thunderstorms we've had every afternoon it seemed too much trouble to move it outside for a picture of an unfinished painting that's kind of large (and quite wet). During the summer we generally see as many as seven of these big shrimp boats off the beach at Hunting Island. This summer the shrimp disappeared for more than a month and I haven't seen as many boats as usual but they're back now. Often the boats are so far off the shore that you can't get a decent photo even with a telephoto lens but on this particular gray and humid afternoon, they were close enough that I was able to get about a zillion photos.

Thursday 20 August 2015

funnel cloud - 10x12"


One of the things I love the most about painting outside is the adventure. On Monday I was amazed to see a funnel cloud forming as I was painting this scene.......at first I couldn't believe what I was seeing and briefly wondered if it was "smart" to remain but the cloud sort of spiraled back up into the clouds so I stayed.

Sunday 9 August 2015

edge of the tide (and new baby chicks) - 18x14"

This is the beach near my house.......the tide has quite a range at Coffin Point and the difference between high and low tide is pretty big. Even though there are few waves due to it being somewhat protected by Harbor Island (in the distance) and Edisto Beach (on the left but unseen in this painting - six miles by boat but close to two hours by car), the tide coming in can be pretty dramatic as it washes over the marsh grasses. I only started this yesterday and probably would have finished it except.......................


the baby chicks arrived at the post office!!!! They only hatched five days ago but already seem to have grown since yesterday. I spent way too much time just watching them and they are super cute.


Tuesday 4 August 2015

Giant Green Luffa - 12" square


I planted this Luffa gourd plant around the end of May............still no flowers and it is at least 8 feet tall. I was about to pull it up but checked google and discovered that it takes an exceptionally long time to produce the gourds (probably why I never tried to grow them in MA). Anyway, I loved the grace and gesture of the plant enough that I probably would not have done so. There certainly is a lot of green in this picture! I have a huge garden that I have been creating in my back yard during the past three summers so I will probably be doing some more of these types of pictures - I have my eye on one of the 4" garden spiders that make these cool zig zag webs and are pretty scary except that they eat so many bugs I've begun to kind of think they are attractive rather than scary.

Monday 3 August 2015

Another oldie........12" square


Between the heat, humidity and insects it has been really hard to paint outside recently. I did manage to do it today but couldn't finish before the thunder and lightning resumed. So I figured I would update my blog a bit (something I have been neglecting for a couple of years)! While playing with the look of my blog I discovered that I sort of hated the black background and changed it to a very light gray and........eek, the photos look really weirdly dark now. At any rate, I did this one a few years ago so it hasn't been posted for a while.