Last week C and I went over to Ft. Morgan and Gulf Shores. I took the opportunity to revisit a view that had hung over our TV for a year or so and drawn my endlessly critical eye. So I set up to paint it in oils and solve the problems I had piled up in my head about the first one. This was the episode with brisk weather.
There’s not a lot to say about this small panel painting except that I really like it a lot. I did it nearly all in one 3 hour sitting on site. The next day after it had mostly dried I gave it a French polish - taking out a smudge here and a weak stroke there. For some reason I like the distant treeline - it sits just right on top of the water and it suggests a lot more detail than actually is there. There isn’t a lot of fussiness in the color mixing. I got what I wanted down on the canvas pretty close to the first time out. I also like the shallow waves and sweeps of water onto the shore.
New and old versions
Several days later Christina went beachcombing despite threats of rain. I brought up a larger canvas and decided to start a 2’ x 4’ scene of the Gulf Shores pier in acrylics. To get a couple of lines right, I used a gimmick of some masking tape. This got me a straight line on the horizon and a gray band in which to paint the pier. This was a real time saver. I was on the balcony from a late afternoon to a first half of the morning as the weather cycled between partly cloudy sunset to misty morning to rough conditions with driving rain and gusts to post rain dramatics. I shifted the painting to follow the conditions several times. The rain drops gave the sky and water an interesting effect- the paint drooped and began to slide down the canvas in places and the rain drops left tiny grooves on the surface. You can see a few places where this still shows up. I took it inside and put it in the shower to let it drain off. Then we had to take it home. I finished it using a reference photo taken in the last hours of the alla prima work. Early on and at the end I used a pointy brush tip art marker.
Here is a little clip of the evolution of the painting.