Green Point Lighthouse

After breakfast we headed out to St. George New Brunswick past Back Bay to Green Point. This area had wonderful views of cottages to a lighthouse. The morning sun was brilliant, casting long blue shadows on patches of rocks and grassy patches that lead your eye naturally to the lighthouse. The cast shadows were deep blue almost black with the sunlight yellow kissed green grass. While some chose to beat the tides and paint the lighthouse from the beach, there some lavender, pink and yellow flowers blowing in the gale wind in the foreground of the lighthouse that were calling me.

Here's the photo....



I mentioned briefly that there was a gale force wind..and I'm not exaggerating. You know you love doing this when you are standing in a wind that can easily blow you over, let alone your easel. The flowers were swaying, at times laying sideways, in the wind and it the composition of the painting it was an opportunity to direct the eye back to the left of the painting. Also, it became apparently clear that paint was going to have to be laid on thick--a great learning on pushing paint around and a light touch!

While my drawing of the lighthouse left much to be desired, the overall values I captured and the composition was very good. One other you learn is that you can't crop back red in a wet painting-not without making a total mess--so I can actually fix the top of the lighthouse when it is dry with some cropping back. I ask you to ignore the drawing of the lighthouse and observe the good things about the study.
The distance or depth in the study is good. The flowers movement, the color of the water and the depth of the islands in the distance...all great color and value. Very nice cast shadows. Considering the conditions and the fact I can correct the drawing, not bad....and will be transferred and worked in the studio.



After a morning of painting and being wind whipped we broke for lunch. There was a bald eagle that graced us with its presence and we painted. His watchful eye our protector and his graceful gliding on the winds a joy to watch. In the bay there was a grey seal frolicking in the cold blue/green waters of the wind whipped bay.

In the morning light a cottage on a s-shaped strip of land caught my eye and since a utility building higher up provided a wind block and an aerial view of the cottage in flat light, an painting exercise and lesson was the subject of the afternoon painting. Joe Anna suggested this aerial color field painting to those of us who wanted to attempt it.

Here's the view with Joe Anna demonstrating the lesson to us...





This exercise was to lay in quickly the color fields in shapes since there were little shadows in the afternoon light. The whole study would be high key with close values. We watched her lay in the colors an after twenty minutes the foundation of the painting was complete. She sent us to our easels to attempt this.

Grasping the basics and tired from fighting the wind, I stopped short--knowing I caught mos the values and with the help of a photograph, I could attempt this exercise to it's fullest in my studio. The photographs I captured not only capture the cottage in afternoon light, but I had captured it in morning light as well. I look forward to painting both to illustrate the difference between the two scenes at each time of day.

We packed up to leave to the hotel. Joe Anna Arnett was speaking that night and we were looking forward to hearing more of the wisdom this Master could impart on us.
Her talk was informative and provided lessons on Sargent and his perseverance and patience in painting.

We followed the lecture with dinner on the porch of the hotel. A great ending to a great day of painting, in our way, persevering the elements to capture 2 studies that will come in handy!!