Poquonnock Sunset

Having been in a bit of a creative and mental slump over the past couple of days, in part due to the high humidity we've had here over the past few days that drains my energy, I have finally gotten some painting done.

I'm always looking for new surfaces to try, usually based on the results and recommendations of fellow artists.  So, while I was out the other day, I stopped by the local chain art supply store and picked up a jar of Golden fine pumice ground and a pad of 11x14" 140-lb cold-press watercolor paper to experiment with.  I love the how the textural effects of the paintings that fellow bloggers Jala and Lorianne get with their handmade grounds, so I was inspired to try it myself.

The surface was easy to prepare:  I placed approximately 1 Tbsp of the pumice ground into a container and added a bit of water to thin it.  I coated one sheet with the plain ground, using a cheap 1" housepainting brush.  Taped it to a board and let it dry in the hot sun.  I decided to tint the remaining ground, so I added some red and burnt umber acrylic to form a warm brown.  I did not add enough to form an opaque color, just a tint.  I was able to cover 2 more pieces of paper using this mixture, thinned with water.

"Poquonnock Sunset"

I based the painting on one of the photos I took last Monday with my new lens, of Bluff Point.  The Poquonnock River forms the inlet to the west side of Bluff point, offering nice reflections and stands of trees on the distal shore....and the prime location of the setting sun.

underpainting - rubbing alcohol with pastel

I really wanted this to be a warm painting, and to that end, there are probably things I'd change about it.  Even a simple painting like this often brings out the deficiencies in my pastel collection, including the lack of darks.  I find that I use my two favorite darks - a dark green Sennelier and dark blue Mt. Vision and Sennelier - for almost everything.  For this, I was wanting for some dark purples and warm browns to work in conjunction with the green and blue for the tree stand.

I didn't have the exact colors I was looking for to do the proximal part of the water, so I ended up blending and scumbling blues, yellows and a muted rose gray (Richeson handmade - another favorite brand) to try and achieve what I wanted.

I will probably do a few more reflections and water pieces before returning to solid ground.

Through a telephoto lens

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I *finally* have a new lens for my Nikon.   An eBay purchase from last week, it arrived yesterday, and of course, I wasted no time in getting it on my camera.  While I do like the versatility of the wide-angle zoom lens that came with my camera, the limitations of it were felt on more than one occasion, particularly when trying to shoot distal subjects and wildlife.  This lens, the Nikkor 55-200mm f/4-5.6, offers probably a bit more versatility, given what I like to shoot.

Finding subject matter  to shoot is never an issue here at the house.  I'm a sucker for a cute face.  Having a telephoto lens will make taking portraits of my favorite model even easier.  He's always dressed for the occasion, being nattily attired in his gray tuxedo.  The orange object in the photo?  That's his favorite toy - a fur-covered mouse, with the tail chewed off.  He fetches them when thrown, and carries one up on the bed with him.  It's one of the many Cute Cat Things he does.

Nelson

f/4.8, 90mm, ISO 800

Later, after stopping by the library for the summer solstice celebration/reception they were having, I drove out to Bluff Point SP, which is just down the road.  Walking out on a small jetty afforded multiple photo opportunities perfectly suited to this lens, including this macro shot.  The combination of longer focal length, plus an additional stop up, makes for shots with pleasing bokeh:

Afternoon Grasses

135mm,  f/5, 1/500 sec.

Slightly further down the jetty, and I saw this young cottontail.  It was so absorbed in obtaining some dinner that it didn't immediately scamper off as I came up the trail.  No cropping.  Not bad for a hand-held shot.  

Dinnertime

200mm, f/5.6, 1/100 sec., ISO 800

Walking up the road towards Bluff Point, I was able to get my reflections fix, and some of those will no doubt become a series of paintings.   I noticed the waxing moon, and on a whim, decided to see how that looked.  Yeah, it's cropped to help the composition, but I was impressed with the detail that is visible on something that is over 238K miles away.  With my old lens, it always looked like a small white blip in the sky.

Waxing Gibbous Moon

200mm, f/5/6, 1/500 sec., ISO 250

And, finally, the sunset shot.  Metering directly off of the sun (and probably destroying some retinal cells in the process), produced this darker, more dramatic image.  Colors weren't really quite this orange, but the sky isn't blown out, so that's the trade-off.  I still rather like it.  Minor pp to darken the highlights and lighten the shadows.  A tripod would have been nice to have along.

Solstice Sunset

120mm,  f/11, 1/640 sec., ISO 200

Summer is now officially here!

Red Canoe - pastel

My friends here in Mystic have been telling me to paint some Mystic landscape scenes, so before I jump into the aerial cloud series, I thought I'd do a piece that would appeal to local tastes.  Another impetus was an announcement in the Groton public library for submissions from local artists for their summer solstice celebration.  I love my library, and I've always enjoyed seeing the various displays and such that they put on throughout the year.  It's not a competition and each artist may enter up to two pieces of artwork.   Sounded like fun!

It was also an opportunity to: 1) work on a larger surface; 2) replace an outdated pastel painting that has been hanging on my wall for the past 12 years or so...one of the first I ever did.  It was done from a photo out of a magazine, and is outdated as far as my pastel painting skills go.  It has a nice wooden frame and the non-glare glass I got when I had the original painting matted.

It's something that appeals to *my* aesthetic sensibilities as well, since I took the photo.   It was of that fabulous red canoe that was sitting on the edge of the marsh side of Brushy point.   Loved the reflections, the contrast of the red canoe with the greens and blues of the distal shore and water.  And the little building...I decided to keep it, as I think it adds another point of interest and directs the eye to the tree line from the boat.

"Brushy Pt. Canoe"

12x18" on Strathmore 400 series paper

available for purchase

It seemed like a pretty straightforward painting - simple shapes and a relatively limited palette.  Well, after doing the majority of my pastels on sanded surfaces where the pastel goes down like butter, this was a bit of a challenge. The hardest part of the entire painting?  The reflection.  Jeebus...I don't want to mention how many times I re-did that particular area.  It's even been re-done after I took this photo, and still, as I am looking at the image and writing this, I see a few other areas that I need to re-work slightly.   That's one of the benefits of taking a photo - for whatever reason, it allows flaws to become apparent that  just weren't appreciated during the painting process. 

The original photo showed the trees in their anemic, pre-leafout colors, which didn't appeal to me.  So, they were done to reflect a bright spring green that they are currently.   It will be on its way to the local framer in a short while.

So, it will hang in the Groton Public Library for most of the month of June, along with one of my Mule Mtn. pastels done late last year.  Perhaps it will strike a chord with a local (even the canoe owner - who knows?) and it will sell.  If not, it will be a reminder of my time here in New England after we're 2200 miles to the west...

Marsh Inlet - pastel

Today was one of those days that was a bit of a grind in the studio...where nothing but "blah/ick/ugh" is created, despite what seems to be a good effort.   It's day two of grey skies with no sun, and that no doubt played a part, as I find it really depressing.  The weather here is a constant reminder to me that mid-July [our moving date to Durango] really can't get here soon enough.

I'd started a painting a couple days ago, based on one of the Bluff Point photos I took 2 weeks ago.  It wasn't one that made it onto the blog, but I took a similar one, of the curving shoreline and distal treeline along Brushy Pt., back in Nov.  Well, I couldn't make it work, despite reworking it twice.  So, I decided to move on to something else for the time being.

One of my favorite photos out of that lot was one that I liked because of its very abstract nature, and that's how I intended to paint it.  The design and shapes were simple, and not wanting to get overly committed to it in case it was a complete junker, I decided to use some Strathmore Artagain paper, which I haven't used in a while now.   The smooth surface of the paper forces looseness and dedicated strokes, because it just doesn't hold much pastel at all.  And, some of the softer pastels (Sennelier in particular) just form flakes and don't stick at all (white part of the cloud being the part in this painting).

For most pastels, I either use a white pastel pencil or charcoal/charcoal pencil to draw the shapes and sometimes to block in basic values.  I didn't do any preliminary blocking in - just started grabbing whatever colors suited my fancy at the time, with the only attempt at actual matching done for the water.  It was good in that it helped me get back into a groove a little bit and it's not so gawd-awful that I won't post it.  I may revisit it on a better surface and larger size and with more thought given to the colors, but in the meantime, here it is.  The Olympus did a respectable job, even in the awful natural lighting.  So, at least that's a good thing!

Marsh Inlet - 9x12"

pastel on Strathmore Artagain paper

I managed to knock out two more pastels and start on a third today.  I'll post those tomorrow.  It's supposed to be sunny, which is a good thing.

Spring at Bluff Point - photo essay

Last November, one of my posts featured photos taken at one of my favorite places near where we live - Bluff Point State Park - and can be seen here.  I like it because it's one of the few places with wide-open space, which of course, appeals to my aesthetic sensibilities.   It has interesting shorelines, marshes, inlets, wildlife and things that make neat reflections in the water.  

Like fall in New England, spring - at least as far as the trees are concerned - transformation happens very fast.  The deciduous forests spend about 6 months without leaves, so once the chance of ice and snow is well past, they waste no time getting busy gathering energy from the sun while they can.  Once leaf buds start to occur, the process is like an explosion, and is pretty much complete within 2 weeks.   The leaves rapidly change from pale yellow and acid green to a deeper, more mature mixture of greens as the chloroplasts maximize the production of chlorophyll and other photon-capturing pigments needed for photosynthesis.

About two weeks ago, we decided to take advantage of the nice weather + weekend, and take a walk and photo shoot out along Bluff Point.  It was mid-afternoon, so not optimal conditions for excellent photos.  However, I did manage to take a few that turned out well enough to post here.  Others have far more value as a starting point for a painting.

Red Canoe

Sitting along the cove side of the Brushy Pt. barrier beach, this canoe patiently waits for its next seafaring adventure.

 

Seaweed 

These pieces of seaweed form interesting abstract shapes against the sand in this shallow section of the cove.

Coming Together

Wakes from this delightful pair of ducks form a circle in the still waters of the inlet of the Poquonnock River.

Reflections of Early Spring

This small barrier island, located on the breaker side of Brushy Pt.,  shows off its assortment of trees.  In the clear, shallow water of the foreground, clumps of dark seaweed sway with the ebb and flow of the tide.

Towards the Marsh

A marshy inlet and peninnsula form the backdrop for these strands of marshgrass and bright green shrub.

Side note: regarding future posts, I will probably have to stick with existing material for at least the next few days; yesterday, while we were out on a drive and photo shoot up some of the side roads, I was climbing up a short, grass-covered slope to get a better view of a field, when I slipped.  My camera swung forward and the edge of the lens hit a clump of grass, not even that hard.  However, it was enough to do something to the internal workings of the zoom mechanism, reducing the lens to a fixed 55mm.  That would have been acceptable, and I managed to take a few photos after that.   But, either due to me fiddling with it, or taking photos in the jammed position, the iris (?) is now partially closed.  So, it's hosed.  A new lens is in order, but I'm not going to get the same 18-55mm that came with the camera.  Time to move up to something better...and more durable!

I may have to go back to my trusty old 3MP Olympus PnS to take photos of paintings I do in the meantime.

Bluff Point State Park - photo essay

The weather was exceptional today, and probably the last warm, sunny weekend day we'll have here for close to 5 months.  I won't be spending the winter in CT, but this was a day for getting out with the camera and going for a walk.  Location:  Bluff Pt. State Park, which is about 10 min. from our house in nearby Groton.  It is one of my favored places in the area to go for a hike or run.  It features a 3 mile loop multi-use road/path, some points of interest and areas to fish and harvest shellfish.  It also has a sandbar beach called "Brushy Pt" that is popular with beachgoers in the summer and equestrians. 

Here are some photos out of the 40 or so that I took today that give a good sampling of this popular state park.  I was on a wide angle kick today, so most of these were shot at 18-25mm. 

Saltmarsh grass along Brushy Pt, cove side

View looks to the west, with New London visible in the distance

Leading the Way

This boardwalk leads from the cove side to the "breaker" side of Brushy Pt.

Unplanned Obsolescence

A section of beach fencing lies forgotten amongst the beach grass

East towards Bluff Point

The "breakers" side of Brushy Pt.  The rocky tip of Bluff Pt. is visible.

Phragmites facing East

The faded flowers of Common Reed [Phragmites australis] sway in a light breeze

Boulders and Breakers

The surf is no match for these huge granite boulders at the eastern tip of Bluff Point.  Fisher's Island, NY, is the barely visible landmass along the distant horizon.

Salt marsh and trees

This small area of marsh wetlands is bordered by a stand of hardwood and evergreens

Reflections: land, sky and water

Here is a collection of photos taken at various locations, seasons and time of day that have one thing in common:  water and its ability to reflect light.  Such images usually evoke a sense of calm and tranquility - something that is always a welcome reprieve from the stress of daily life.

Cloud Reflections - Poquonnock River

Late afternoon reflected light reveals unseen overhead clouds near Bluff Point State Park, Groton, CT.

Sunset Reflections

The foreground reeds provide a sharp contrast to the bright sunset colors on the Poquonnock River

Monsoon Clouds over Trout Lake

The San Juan Mountains and summer cumulus clouds create an interesting symmetry in this lake south of Telluride, CO. 

Fall Afternoon near Esker Point, CT

A sinuous current breaks up the small ripples near the far shore, providing some interesting contrast in this small cove.

Mumford Cove, late summer

The still water allows for a nearly perfect symmetry of the land and trees.  Fisher Island, the land mass seen in the distance, is located in L.I.S. (Long Island Sound).

Fall Reflections in Pond

This small pond in Old Mystic provides a double-dose of peak fall color.  A patch of lilypads provides some texture to break up the glass-smooth surface of the water.