It's a Wet, Blue World

 
    This painting, Beach, is very small - it's only eight inches by ten inches tall, and is in oil.

It's a Wet, Blue World (two)

 
     I titled this oil Where Cypress Stood. It is rather large, at 31" x 46". The scene is off of Indian Island in North Carolina. As the water rises and the land erodes, the trees nearest the edge - often the dramatic old cypress and the tall straight pines once used for ships' masts - die off. Their skeletal remains provide both vertical and horizontal elements in the beautiful and haunting shore landscapes. 

It's a Wet, Blue World (three)

 
     This one, Storm Wake, is also oil (21" x 27"). Ostensibly, it shows a confused sea in the wake of a storm. I referenced it - with permission - from Galen Rowell's photo "Wild Seas of the Drake Passage to Antarctica"... using the photo for the general wave and cloud formations... and then added the retreating rain, the distant land and the bottle in order to play upon the feeling of promise or hope presented by the breaking light. 
     Partly in order to enrich the close-up water surface (natural surfaces are often fractal in nature in that as you move closer they continue to present further elaboration), and partly due to some fabulously complex wine, I enjoyed a long, peaceful time of doodling intricately with the foam trails and breaks. 
     Only much later, while photographing and contemplating the wakes left in the water by a motor boat, did I realize the waves I'd been referencing were not, strictly, "confused seas" but rather the result of a motor boat wake left among the waves it was (naturally) cutting across diagonally. Of course! Mr. Rowell was, no doubt, in a motored boat on those waters. My original working title - referring to the atmosphere in the wake of a storm at sea - was still fine, and those waves could be "confused seas" absent any boat-bound observer... but the realization added a second layer of meaning. It's not only the wake of the storm but a nod to the liquid wake captured by Mr. Rowell.

It's a Wet, Blue World (four)

     Here, the water is locked under the ice and snow. This 16" x 20" acrylic painting shows a view of Freestone Point in January, viewed from half-way out on the pier at Leesylvania Virginia State Park, a bit onto the Maryland side.