Easter at Hug Point

© 2013 R.L. Delight, Hug Point Study, 6"x8", oil on canvas

Yesterday the weather was sublime. We hit 70 degrees on our front porch! That is summer weather around here and not a common occurrence in March. Suddenly I "misplaced" my to-do list and decided that reading a book in the front yard was the most efficient use of my time.*
Today the weather changed again. I purposefully took Friday and Saturday off to get things done so I could start this week with today. The tides were below zero feet, otherwise known as a minus tide and the weather forecast called for sun so perfect conditions for painting at Hug Point. Lowest tide was at 10:35 am so I headed out the door at 8, along with my mate, to have plenty of time to paint before the tide turned. Alas, as often happens in this area, coastal fog has set in. I still went to paint as you can see from the picture above. It was cold though. This is a one hour study and I was shivering by the end of it in spite of my layers. I decided we should go back home even though I had planned to do another one hour study.
I have written about Hug Point before. It is a magical place but can be tricky. The last time I went the tide and surf were too high to paint this scene of the old road bed over the ocean. That is what this painting is, a portion of the view of the old road bed that used to be the only way to get a vehicle or horse down the coast. It was dangerous then as well and you had to time it right to cross before the tide came up. Certain times of the year it became impassible. At least, that is what I have read.
Here are some photos I took so you can get an idea of the scale of the place:

Hug Point road bed looking Northwest

Hug Point cliffs. Taken with back to the ocean on a misty foggy Easter day

Hug Point. Road bed along lower left of the cliff.

The cliffs on right side of this picture are riddled with caves which is how far back the waves go when the tide is high.

Hug Point roadbed from beach looking Southeast.

I will be painting at Hug Point again. Going there is bewildering because there is so much to paint. I could easily spend years, and hopefully will, painting there.

The waves were quite puny today. One of the drawbacks to painting at such a low tide. The fog obscured what little there were. This isn't too much of a problem since the surrounding scenery on the Northern Oregon coast is nothing less than stunning even on a bad day.
I haven't decided where to paint tomorrow but will probably get some wave studies in.

* I was reading The International Bank of Bob by Bob Harris. Highly recommend it, specially if you participate in making Kiva loans or are curious about it. It can get a bit gritty in some spots but leaves you with hope and faith in the world.

Wave Study #44

©2013, R.L. Delight, Wave Study #44, 6"x8", oil on canvas

This wave study was painted yesterday immediately following Wave Study #43. The tide was rapidly going out by this time. The sun had mostly disappeared and the angle of the sun had changed. No luminous light shining behind the waves or on the waves for that matter. There was enough blue in the sky to change the colors of the sea a bit.
I never get tired of watching the ocean. Ever changing it is.
I went out with the ambition to paint three wave studies today. The sun was even brighter. Alas, I got the the beach and set up and a stiff wind suddenly sprang up. I couldn't hold on to umbrella and my easel at the same time. I have some new equipment in mind but will have to sell a few paintings first to buy it.
The equipment I have at the moment is a Best Brella plein air easel umbrella and a Guerilla Painter thumbox mounted on a heavy duty tripod. The umbrella got very good ratings and came with a nice clamping system but, it was not designed to withstand conditions on the coast, hence my Tinker Toy fix and other issues. I may have to come up with a solution unique to the area. I sure would have loved to stay out painting today but the sun was too bright on my easel set up to not paint with the umbrella.
The thumbox screws to the camera mount on the tripod and unfortunately is just too lightweight to hold still when I paint. I usually have to hold one side of it while painting.
I got a sky in before the wind hit and I am sure I looked pretty comical with my body bent at an odd angle, one arm looped around the umbrella with the same hand holding onto the easel while trying to get some additional color notes down. I quickly packed up and then sat in the sunshine and sketched and observed for a while.
I will be taking my weekend tomorrow and Saturday. I still have some organizing to do to paint full out without distractions. Sunday there will be a minus tide at a decent hour in the morning so I will be heading to Hug Point to try to get in the less accessible areas. The weather forecast looks good too.
Keeping my fingers crossed on that!
In the other areas of my life, my dressform arrived yesterday and I got it adjusted with the proper measurements. I will be posting about that on my clothing blog, The Artful Stitch, and starting to sew this weekend!

Wave Study #43 and the Reason Behind the Madness.

©2013 R.L. Delight, Wave Study #43, 6"x8", oil on canvas, one hour study.

Today was a challenge to paint. I think the sun came out once every 5 minutes and the colors would change and shift. When the clouds covered the sun again, the colors would be different than before. In addition, I got to the beach at the turn of the tide and it was going out for most of my painting session. That said, the most amazing colors kept popping out. I tried to capture some of them here.
We live by a green sea. It is rarely blue due to the sky which is usually cloudy. Even when the sky is clear and blue the sea retains some of its green amidst the blue.
I thought I would re-cap and explain what I am trying to achieve with these wave studies and even a bit of what I am not trying to achieve. I do this as much for my own benefit as to address some of the input I have received from various sources outside of this blog.
I want to be able to paint the sea, in all her moods and aspects, with knowledge and ease. Well, perhaps with relative ease. I combine knowledge here with the relative ease because I am not looking for a formula, I am looking for truth and beauty. The only way I know to do this is to simply get out and paint...And study, and watch, observe, reflect, absorb, and just plain allow myself to see, which is easier said than done. I believe by doing this, it will become part of me and unique, like my handwriting and will allow me to tell the old, old stories that need to be told and retold.  Who knows? The survival of the people and living beings on this planet may depend on it!
I truly believe that the cool breeze, warm sunshine, cold mist, drenching rain, stinging hail, shrieking wind, rogue waves, smell of seaweed, the roar and sudden clap of the waves, the hiss of the foam, the eerie sound of wood and stone rolling in the water, stranded salps and jellys, broken shells, whole shells, piles of driftwood, huge tangles of bull kelp, flotsam and jetsam, flora and fauna, both living and deceased, and lets not forget the sand, all, ALL of it goes into a painting when you live it. I do not believe I have the skills to capture all of that from a photograph. I don't believe anyone can get those skills without study from life first. There is a time and place for photo references but my wave studies are neither.
That brings me to the word study. These are not finished paintings. These are experiments and practice. These are like when basketball players shoot baskets over and over again. One of these days, some or all of these studies will find their way into a full fledged painting. A painting carefully conceived and created. In fact, one of these is being born in my studio at the moment! I write this more to remind myself. Sometimes I catch myself getting too caught up in making the study pretty instead of seeing what I really need to paint and trying or failing to paint it. That is part of the process too I suppose.

I think the best compliment I have received on a seascape is when someone tells me they can see, hear, smell, or feel the cold, salt, waves, water, etc. of the ocean in my painting. It is very humbling when someone tells me that. 

Of course, I always appreciate the responses to my paintings and consider every point that you all bring up! I specially appreciate when someone sticks their neck out and tells me why, or why not, they like or don't like a study. It truly helps (Please be gentle, firm is ok too but gently! ) I do my best to get my ego out of the way and listen as these responses are genuine.

Well, this has been a long post. I surprised myself with the passion that got unleashed when I started writing. I think if you prick any artist, craftsperson, or lover of beauty, you would get a similar response.

For those of you that made it this far, a thousand thank you's! I am grateful for all the wonderful people I have met through this blog and other social media. I learn so much from everyone. The next post will be shorter. I should probably work on something funny to say too!

Stepping Beyond the Study: Wave Study #42

©2013 R.L. Delight, Wave Study #42

I almost called this post "stepping off the cliff" but didn't want to unduly alarm anyone as I realized that is a possibility around here, one I intend to forgo. This painting was actually a wave study I did after Wave Study #40. It probably should have been #41 but I wasn't happy with the first attempt so I put it aside.
Today, due to tides and scheduling, I worked in the studio and I decided to take this study and play around with it. Looking back I should have taken a before and after picture but I unintentionally neglected to do so. I asked a whole host of what ifs and tried them out on the painting. Some had to be removed or worked over and some stayed. I played with brush technique, color, value, edges, and color temperature. I had a very relaxed and enjoyable time as I wasn't concerned about the outcome of the study. The study is just, is what it is. The bones of the painting, or the drawing, is about all that remained the same.
I like the idea that there is no failure, only things to be learned.
I have another of these studies, actually two more, that I have kept with which I will do the same. Next time I will remember to take a before and after photo. I learned a lot from doing this exercise.

The tides will be giving me some good opportunities to paint in the coming week. I am still working on some longer paintings that I will eventually be sharing the progress on.

Today was a cold, rainy, and dark as the painting above looks. Hopefully the weather will be kind while I am out painting this week.

Wave Study #41

© 2013 R.L. Delight, Wave Study #41, 6"x8", oil on canvas

It seems the weather cleared up just in time. This morning was calm, cloudy with occasional sun, and a bit on the chilly side but good painting weather. The waves were so-so but, good enough to study. I still have a bit to go to achieve and understand what I want to. I am getting faster at painting waves. Must be all that practice. This one was painted in an hour plus. As I get faster, I can get more information in and work on values, brushwork, color, etc. Of course, I still have those times when the painting just plain fails. I learn from those too but they aren't as much fun.
I had a challenging time getting started this morning. Our band rehearsal went late last night. I need to get enough sleep in order to get out in the weather and paint anything resembling what I see in front of me. As a result, I got a later start than I wanted to. My turps (OMS) in its leak-proof, sealed container...leaked. Of course, I had just refilled it with fresh.  My pack took a header in the car and ended upside down on the floor. I don't know why I didn't set it on the floor as usual. I think the force of falling upside down  might have loosened the seal and allowed the container to leak. Fortunately I don't trust things like that in general and had it in a zip lock bag, which, considering the age of the bag, it is amazing that it managed to contain the leak. No turps were leaked or spilled onto the beach.
The same incident with the pack caused my freshly laid out paint on my palette to slide and mix with one another. That is a first for me too. I also managed to drop the lid to the turps container into the sand, wet side down.
Fortunately I was in a philosophical mood and just shrugged it all off, cleaned up as best I could and got the above painting!
It is spring break time around here which means a lot of families with kids and dogs wandering up and down the beach and our one main street in town. One beautifully freckled little girl very earnestly interrupted my concentration to tell me that my painting was very very good. She had snuck up on me and I didn't know she was standing there. I gave her a smile and a thank you and she went on her way.
I had an appointment this afternoon up the coast so I was only able to get the one wave study in but it is good to be back in the saddle after my mini break from wave painting with a lot of exciting things to come.

Life Drawing and a Deep Breath

© 2013 R.L. Delight, 30 minute pose, charcoal on toned paper.

I guess I should give a heads up. Anytime there is "Life Drawing" in the post title, you will be seeing drawings of nude people.This got pretty smudged up on the walk home. I hadn't intended to take a picture of it but after thinking about it, thought I would post it.
I sure wish life drawing were mandatory in all schools. Perhaps if it were many more people would see the incredible beauty of the human form, both female and male, in all its variety. I think we would have a lot more respect for our own bodies no matter what the shape and color, and the ridiculous, narrow, confining, and sometimes insulting*, definition of what female (and male) beauty that is held up as a standard today would be seen for what it truly is, a blasphemy against nature (or your choice of diety).
OK, stepping down from my soapbox now. I always feel that way after a life drawing session as I am always awed anew at the beautiful human form. I have drawn all ages, shapes, colors, sizes, and genders and have yet to not feel that awe.
I am improving, slowly as I don't get to life drawing as much as I would like to. That is OK though, for now. I am about to get less life drawing in as plein air season is upon us and I am about to go full steam ahead. This blog should be humming after the past few weeks of quiet so batten down the hatches a paint storm is a-coming.



* Yes, I believe the models used in said narrow standard definition of beauty are in fact, as beautiful as you and I, but what I find insulting is that the images are digitally manipulated beyond what the human form actually is and are often used, not to portray beauty, but to sell a product through the prostitution of the human form. Don't get me started on the pressure to surgically enhance ones body to fit that standard! Strong words I know, and fine lines and slippery slopes are included.

Shedding Old Skin

© 2013 R.L. Delight, Woven Shibori, hand dyed

Once upon a time I was a weaver...well actually, I still am but haven't woven in a while. This was one of the last pieces I created before we began our wandering. It is a technique called woven shibori and I really enjoyed weaving it. It is woven with a fine Merino wool and there-in lies part of my dilemma. I decided to live a vegan lifestyle shortly after finishing this piece (over 5 years ago). It is a personal choice and I am not going to go into all the details here on this blog but I will eventually share it on my Coastal Vegan blog.
My spring cleaning has unearthed bits and pieces from my past that I need to let go, move on, and find new homes for. To that end, I am setting up an Etsy store. Now, I consider myself fairly fast on the uptake when it comes to using computers and the internet. The Etsy store set-up has been rather cumbersome for me. Perhaps it is because I am impatient to get the job done and move on or perhaps it is because I have been cooped up in the studio since the weather has been, and continues to be unsettled and stormy. Early Spring is a tough season on the Northern Oregon Coast. March seems to be the wettest and coldest and September seems to be the warmest time of the year. The store isn't open yet but soon will be I will let everyone know.
I have been working on a large composition and it is going slowly. I am not ready to show it on the blog yet and I have been reluctant to spend time finding informational topics to post about. Nothing wrong with such topics but I don't want to have to spend too much time looking for them.
So this post is to say, I am still here, I am still working and will eventually crawl out from under all the cold and rain and show what I have been up to. In the meantime, the spring cleaning continues.
I am realizing that I have reached a point where I need to shed old skin. After all, this is the Year of the Snake. Hopefully my new skin will be creative, colorful, and healthy!