The ocean Wave

SOLD
I painted two of these yesterday, not that I was overly motivated, in fact, I started out the day with no real idea as to what to paint. I have a commissioned piece ( a large one) I want to start but I have to cut the paper from my 10 foot roll and that means asking my husband for help and clearing everything off my painting table. Not wanting to get that started, I decided I would paint my daily painting and get it out of the way before getting out the big roll of paper which will take over my entire small 11 by 12 foot art space.

Lately I have been painting snow scenes and I thought of painting another one but wasn’t overly thrilled with that. I decided to clean up my painting area. You know, sometimes this helps… Its like getting the cob webs clear from your mine… getting organized also makes painting easier once you have decided what to paint.



I made a cup of hot chocolate and took a look around… dog hair dust bunnies clung to the corners of my walls and corners of the room like people at a meeting when volunteers are asked to step forward. Oh yes, did I mention I love books and as a visual person I love looking at anything with pictures… so of course there are old newspapers, magazine articles, piles of reference books, art books, and my own photographs all just lying about taking up space, space I definitely will need.



I decided to just dig in, to clean, pick up and throw away. So what is better than to start at the bottom...I swept, then I took out the trash… working my way up... I cleaned up my table by throwing away the used Kleenex, candy wrappers, (yes I like to suck on mints or candy when I paint). and misc value sketches and pencil drawings. I took the wet towels to the washing machine, put away stray palette knives and pin knives, cleaned my brushes, and laid them out to dry… got my water buckets filled, & squeezed out fresh paint ( don’t ask me why, but this always gives me a bit of a trill) into my palette finally I got some paper out and of course looked down at the white paper with a “what now?”



This sometimes happens to all artists, especially if you have a deadline to paint a painting every single day. I decided to look thru some books. Hoping for some inspiration. I was looking thru a book a pal of mine lent me about oceans and beautiful beaches all over the world and I realized I love the way water looks… not beaches but the actual water itself, its reflective qualities, color, shape, movement, it all intrigues me. The first surface that I thought of to use was clay board because water on clay board is very slippery and no matter what you do it always looks wet. After doing one wave ( posted yesterday) I did another using alcohol for the white. Alcohol when spritz on (or dropped into paint) pushes water and of course color away from the surface exposing the surface of the paper or in this case the clay board. It has a very natural appearance and is usually very circular in shape. I use this natural shape to make the wave look foamy It dries very fast and leaves the white area of your paper for you to reintroduce more color or just to leave as is.



If you have any questions about the use of alcohol just write to me and I can explain its application further.