Sunsets Across the Land - Quartet Miniseries in pastel

Sunset #1 - Acapulco
3x9 inches
pastel on reclaimed Colourfix

Sunset #2 - Across the Poquonock River, CT
SOLD

Sunset #3 - Bluff, UT

Sunset #4 - West of Tucson

A return to these 1:3 ratio small pastels that I've enjoyed doing, with some landscape-format sunsets for this series.  Nothing like some bright, over-the-top reds and oranges or warm pinks and muted corals to help with a creative slump, right?


Four sunset moments from four very different locations.  There are plenty of art critics that believe sunset paintings are a cliche (did I mention this in the last post?  I believe I may have) and border on kitsch, especially those with the sun in a setting position.  


Sunset paintings are one of my guilty pleasures, kitsch or not.  


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And, here are a few recent photos of sunsets taken from our deck:

April 11 - Altostratus

Kelvin-Helmholtz cloud - April 11

April 5 - Altocumulus

April 4 - Altostratus

Watch Hill, RI - miniseries quartet

tags:  original pastel painting - new england landscape - beach - lighthouse - original art - oceanscape 

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I had to split this next miniseries, now switched to a 1:3 horizontal format, into two days.   It's a radical change in landscape subject:  coastal New England, specifically Watch Hill, RI.  Watch Hill is a quaint little coastal village that is also classified as a National Historical District.  It was one of my favorite places to go when we lived in Mystic, and why I ventured to paint it.  I wrote a post about it back in June, with photos taken during one of our trips there.

Napatree Beach Path

3x9 inches

pastel on reclaimed Colourfix

Available for purchase

Napatree Point is a small barrier beach that extends west from Watch Hill, separating Block Island Sound and the Atlantic from Little Narragansett Bay.  For some reason, I've always been drawn to beach paths, especially when the ocean lies out of view, like here.  

Shoreline Patrol

3x9 inches

Available for purchase

Gulls.  Noisy, messy and opportunists of any unattended food, they are nonetheless an omnipresent feature of beaches everywhere.   I find myself amused by them.   The original photo was nothing to write home about, but this crop eliminated extraneous detail and turned it into an abstract-like design.  I think this is only the second time I've ever attempted to paint an ocean shoreline (the first attempt went directly into the trash), which is probably pretty clear from this painting!

Beach Rose Fence

3x9 inches

Available for purchase

Beach rose (Rosa rugosa) is found throughout the shoreline areas of coastal New England.  Walking along the beach, I saw them covering the outside of this picket fence and thought it was so attractive and representative of the quaint nature of this charming village.  The challenge here was to avoid cloning of the roses (in terms of size, shape and position) and to think in right-brained terms of everything as groups of abstract shapes, overriding the left-brain's attempt to depict them as individual roses, leaves, and formed shadows.   It's about creating an impression for the viewer.

Watch Hill Lighthouse

3x9 inches

Available for purchase

I'll be honest here...I usually detest lighthouse paintings.  They conjure up images of kitsch and saccharine, Kincade-esque paintings found in touristy gift shops.  The fact that this is composed of a group of buildings vs. the usual cylindrical lighthouse is what brokered the deal to photograph and then paint it.   The lone gull was in the reference photo, and I decided to keep it.   At least I resisted the urge to add a rose trellis up the lighthouse, eh?

All of these were done on reclaimed Colourfix paper.  If I thought that painting on pristine Colourfix was  unpleasant, painting on this was tedious.  That I was even able to get any small shape to look like its intended form (the gull and lighthouse buildings), let alone at this small size, still surprises me.  

After this, it's back to my comfort zone in the southwestern landscape for a while.

New miniseries - Sunset Strip Quartet

tags:  original pastel painting - landscape painting - sunset - original art for sale - impressionist landscape - southwestern landscape - cumulus clouds

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Here is something completely different, and just the thing I've been looking for to break up the traditional landscapes I've been doing lately.  I was inspired by my blogger friend Jala's recent series of small pastel abstracts she calls "Strata".  They are mostly narrow vertical-format pieces of pure color.  I love them!  


I spent part of last night experimenting with a 1:3 aspect ratio crop with photos in my various folders on my computer, and realized I had just come up with a fun new idea.


I'm calling them "Miniseries", and it's a double-entendre of sorts, as it refers both to the size and the number.  My plan or goal is to do a quartet of paintings for each theme.


[Note:  Blogger seems to have some text formatting issues...the edited page says that the text is the same size and the same font but the "preview" page shows smaller font size for some text...not sure what to do about that]


First quartet:  Sunset Strips

Road Reflections 9x3 inches
pastel on white Colourfix
Available for purchase

I have this ever-expanding collection of sunset photos I've taken in various locations.  Some are good as stand-alone photos, some are good for reference material only and most fall somewhere in between.  Somehow, cropping them to this unexpected portrait format adds some level of uncertainty - an abbreviated glimpse into the landscape, but with enough information to tell a story...a short story.

Connecticut Cumulus
Available for purchase

These also seemed like a good way to use up the remaining pieces of Colorfix paper I have; each piece makes a quartet of paintings. For #1 and #4, I used an alcohol wash underpainting, which is really the best way to use this paper, I've found.  For #2 and #3, it was just finger blending to get rid of the white surface, with additional scumbling.

Sunset Virga
Available for purchase

In addition, these small paintings are a great way to experiment with palettes for future full-sized paintings.  In addition to these "strip" paintings, I've also done some in landscape format, which I have been referring to as "bands".  

Saguaro Silhouette
SOLD

These were fun to do, even on the marginal surface, and I could see them becoming a regular part of my pastel repertoire.  I already have several more quartets lined up, of all different themes.  Thus far, it's only landscapes, but I can see this application for still life and even portraits.