WHERE DO I GO NOW?

In a past-post, I wrote about my experimental journey into abstract design and painting. And how it took years, to slowly emerge. As can happen I became a lazy-daisy, and drifted off thinking of water. You know: lake, river, ocean kind of water,  not dishwater. 

Through all these years, one of my muses has been the ocean, the beach, the hot shifting sand, the never ending fascination with seashells, the savory taste of salt and sand in my hair (not in my eyes), the casual viewing of children and adult-children; play, dive, swim, casting all cares aside. Just being their rascally, free selves.  The words and feelings are universally the same.

Splashing around water is better than yoga for me, but then I wasn't a yoga prodigy.

...a bit of history... 

Born in San Francisco, my parents and I lived on a tiny houseboat in the bay. How about that for lullabying to sleep.   A few years later we moved inland, to a mountain shelter community. We had mountain streams and lakes to explore. An aunt had an old wooden cabin near Silver Lake...that's when I was brave or naive enough to get in icy cold mountain water. 

Over the decades of loading and unloading moving vans there was Chicago and the Great Lakes,

Maryland and the Chesapeake Bay.

Travels to near and far away places.

So many experiences to draw from. 

My first real experience in trying to capture water came through a series of trips to Europe. Captivated by the colorful shops and boats, my camera capturing what I saw. 

From that came many paintings based partly in realism but mostly imagination. 

And so the painting of water based subjects continues. However rather than being specific, place oriented, there is now the desire to peal back the unnecessary, the superfluous, and open up to the internalized feelings that "all waters" bring to me.

I am making my way forward, painting by painting. Looking for the essence of place.

"She liked the sharp salty smell of the air, and the vastness of the horizons, bounded only by a vault of azure sky above. It made her feel small, but free as well."   George Martin

Smiles: Sharon

Summer's Favorite Things: Part 4, The Water

 Living in North Carolina, EVERYONE I chat with has at least one BEACH vacation during the summer. I listen intently, making  mental notes of where they go, the best of the best beaches, tucking away bits and pieces of information for the time we  take our next holiday by the water.

Although I grew up 'landlocked' in the western states, we did our fair share of "water play" but it was boating and water skiing on resevoirs and lakes.

When we had a young family we would go camping on the Oregon coast. Once we drove into a camp late at night, pitch black, with the roar of the waves in our dreams.  In the morning we found ourselves perched precariously on a precipice overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Oregon. 

We pitched khaki colored tents at Lake Tahoe enjoying the ICE COLD CRYSTAL CLEAR water, marshmallows over a fire pit and naughty squirrels that ran off with anything not tied down.

Years later we moved to the EAST COAST, eventually living five year in Havre de Grace...a beautiful village nestled on the corner of the Susquehanna River and the Chesapeake Bay.

We would go to the harbor any time, any season for any reason. 

It was as beautiful in summer, as it was glorious iced over in the winter.

A winter interpretation of the frozen docks at Sunrise.

The Chesapeake Bay has a fascinating shoreline. It isn't exactly beach, but mostly rocks, precipices, and occasional drifts of sand. One doesn't swim rather boating, sailing, water skiing and jet skiing are the favored sports.

I will be back later this week with some water sketches. Some evolve  into large paintings. A few are my favorite paintings of all times.

But for now I leave you with another beautiful waterway.

Venice!

I think I will check out a great movie that is filmed in Venice and dream a bit.