Rocks

 

The rocks rimming Hudson Bay are some of the oldest on our planet. Gneisses and volcanic rocks are accompanied by younger sedimentary rocks. Perhaps even more interesting is that these rocks along the shore endure a 14-foot tidal change twice a day. You might be standing at the edge of the water and once the tide goes out you can not see the bay with the naked eye.

 

Some of the rocks are enormous boulders left over from the last ice age. Here I am painting some of the smaller outlying rocks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

More Background

 

I've done a little tweaking with the sky. The large bit of moisture near the bear's nose has been softened and shortened.

 

The first stage of the water has been painted. It may look strange to have orange water but it underlays the "sparkly" layer similar to the technique in my painting Walkin' On Sunshine below.

 

 

 

 

Palette knife

 Some artists wield a palette knife expertly when they apply paint to a canvas or board. I view this tool differently.

 

 For me it is essential for mixing paint. I like one which is an elongated diamond with a sharp pointy end.

 

Secondly, I use my palette knife for mistakes. In this piece I had my whole sky carefully designed and drawn. Lights and darks would be blended just right to give a feeling of the type of stormy skies they have around Hudson Bay, Manitoba. I painted it. It didn't work.

 

I tried fixing it but all I ended up with was a mess. Time for the palette knife. I scraped off the majority of paint. You'd probably like to see what it looked like before I grabbed the palette knife. Well, I didn't take a photo of it - in too big a hurry to "erase" it. This is one great advantage of oil paint. While it is still wet one can remove it and not be distracted by its lack of success.

 

Time to regroup. What type of storms do I remember from my times there? How can I incorporate them into the overall plan? There are some aspects of my design I could use. After putting on some music I starting painting with a less cerebral approach to the sky. Below is the result. It'll be tweaked throughout the painting but for me the sky feels more real and organic.

 

 

  

Sea, Sand, & Shore Collection

 For part of my 2025 Sea, Sand, & Shore Collection at the Louisa Gould Gallery in Vineyard Haven, MA, Martha's Vineyard, I wanted to showcase some of the buoys around the island.

 

There are many of these marine markers to choose from...... for now. Currently there is a proposal from the Coast Guard to remove some buoys, and various mariner organizations are opposed to the idea. The Coast Guard asserts that removing 60 buoys around Cape Cod is part of an essential modernization plan and sailors, commercial fisherman, harbormasters, and others are opposed.

Here is one article published June 9, 2025

 

 Assembly of Delegates opposes Coast Guard plan to remove some buoys in Cape Cod waters

 

 

I won't use the blog to weigh in on the issue as I'm sure there is much to consider on both sides.

 

I will say that the allure of painting buoys will always be with me.

 

For the gallery I decided to paint four buoys (two red, two green), all with different shapes. The water in each painting is unique, reflecting the buoy's setting in Nantucket Sound.

 

 Buoy 1    9" X 11.5"    Original Oil 

 

 

 

Buoy 4A    8" X 11"     Original Oil

 

 

 

Buoy 25     8" X 11"     Original Oil

 

 

 

Buoy 4       9" X 9"      Original Oil

 

 

 

 

   
 

Deadlines + Finished

Deadlines would seem to be contrary to an artistic endeavor. I like deadlines. They add structure.

 

However, there are times ......and this was one of them.

I contacted my gallery 8am on a Tuesday to let them know the first set of paintings was shipped the day before and would arrive on Monday. The owner said that was good because she was hanging my show on Tuesday, the day after they would arrive. In one week. Unfortunately, this was the first I heard of that.  

 

If the gallery was across the street, the next state, or even in the same time zone, this would not be quite the issue. But, I am 3000 miles away. I have three more paintings to ship and was planning on bringing the last four (small ones) with me for the show for a total of nine pieces.

 

Time to make some calls. First I called my framer here (before she opened - handy to have her cell number.) She could join and fill the three frames and have them ready by 2:30 pm today. Next call was to my shipper. He could have the custom boxes ready before he closed at 3 pm. So far, so good.

 

One of the three paintings was still in my studio and it was time to varnish it after I scanned it. I have a 12" X 18" flatbed professional scanner which unfortunately only works on a Windows 7 machine. It's set up in a separate room for ease of scanning. When I turned on the computer it decided it wanted to run a disk check. Tick, tick, tick. Time is slipping away. 45 minutes later disk check complete. Restart and Windows 7 comes up and ..... black screen. Tick, tick, tick. Restart - same result. restart, restart. It will not work for me today.

 

That leaves the deadline and a choice. Do I varnish the painting (giving it 2 hours to dry before leaving the studio) and have a chance to get the shipment moving today? Or, do I only get two of the three paintings shipped and bring the non-scanned painting to my professional printer guy to scan which would take a few days? This painting would be too big to bring with me on the flight so it would arrive late and not be there for the show opening.

 

I decided to forego the scan. Varnish. Wait. Drive to framer. Take paintings in their frames to shipper. Get labels printed all by 2:50pm. This did miss the 2:15 pm FedEx pickup at the shipper but I was prepared to drive the boxes to the main FedEx Spokane office. 

In hindsight, my decision seems to have been a good one. This shipment was delayed because they put the trailer from the semi on a train ......in Ohio. (no idea why.) The three paintings arrived safely on Wednesday and the gallery owner had already pushed the gallery rehanging a day later to accommodate the arrival of my paintings. 

 

This story is probably a familiar one to many artists.

The below is a photo I took of the completed painting. It's not as good as a scan but probably having it at the show opening is more important.

 

 

 Garden Visitor

16" X 12"

Original Oil 

The Bluejay

 Almost always I save the animal to paint last. It's my favorite part of a wildlife painting.

For this piece I started as I usually do - with the eye.  

Reality

 

My paintings are realistic but I view reality with flexibility. The leaf in the middle bottom of the painting which stretches across two pickets had brown edges and the bent over edge had large brown blotches of dried plant. Could I have painted it that way? Of course. But, would presenting the leaf that way add anything to the story or would it be a distraction? I opted for turning back the clock on its life cycle.

 

In addition, the clump of leaves in the bottom left were much darker and hard to read. This left me with an opportunity to add dappled light to the group, change their position, and modify the stems.

 

I could have left out all the leaves and just had the flowers in the background but to me the fence would then be a barrier, a jail, holding back the flowers. The fluidity of the leaves helps add motion to the painting. The pink flower peeking between the pickets is also a deliberate choice, in this case to marry the background to the foreground with its visual proximity to the outside leaves.