Silver and Blue

"Silver Sky" 6x12 oil on panel

      I had inserted an image of this painting at the end of my last post but apparently Blogger feels two images per post are all I get to be able to work with. I painted this one standing in the same place (our west facing deck) as I stood to paint my flag painting. I decided to eliminate the foreground trees so that this painting would be all about the sky and it's reflected color on the Sound. The green would have interrupted all that silver and blue.The clouds were wonderful! Large, shimmery and fast moving. I love watching huge cloud formations moving over a body of water and I find the light and reflections entertaining to paint.
      The photos from this post are from my iPad as this time the colors were closer to the original than those I took with my camera. It is strange how that happens sometimes. The light here is so intense that I find those from my camera a bit bleached out. If I could upload them on my computer I would be able to make some adjustments with Photo Shop to come closer to the original work. If I were a better photographer this wouldn't be an issue.

       Well, I should not have complained about Blogger because now I can only work with one image. I can't enlarge or caption the photo below but I can tell you that this is what I spent yesterday morning painting.  The painting "The Beach at Palmer's Island" was almost finished when I took this photo. What you can't see was what a windy day it was! Since this 8x16 canvas was too large for  my cigar box pochade I had it well taped to the lid of the box. I set my tripod low and sat while painting as this gear is light weight and I wanted to minimize the possibility of it blowing over. I was comfortable and protected from the sun by my beach umbrella and was happy to have so many orange and red umbrellas on the beach to paint. As I was thinking that suddenly an umbrella that was being put up inverted and practically yanked its owner off his feet. In the next second my umbrella was pulled out of the sand by the wind and I chased it while it tumbled toward the ocean! When I returned with it I was greeted by an upturned brush holder and all my brushes were loaded with sand. Plein Air is not without its perils :-)

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      Last evening we had a beautiful sunset and I was able to paint it from that same west facing deck mentioned above. I will post that in my next entry. I have to say the extreme winds made that one more of a challenge than this even with the relative shelter of the house.
       All in all a lovely Memorial Day and I hope yours was a peaceful one!