Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Snow, Salt & Plein Air

I headed over to Cape Neddick last week to paint the ice on the river before it all melted. Its tidal so its dramatically different as the tide rises and falls.

Here is where I set up along the road. I am looking east down the river toward a small harbor, the open ocean is just beyond. It was a beautiful day.


My friend Heather lives in the neighborhood. She took this picture of me doing a small sketch looking west up the river with the sun dropping lower in the sky.


Here is the river and its collar of ice as it heads up into the woods. It is so difficult to paint facing into the sun but I wanted to do it as I know there are only a few days left before these spring like temperatures melt all that great ice.

I am really concentrating here trying not to let the glare off the snow blind me. It was so brilliant that sometime I could barely see my pallette or painting. When a cloud floated by I'd try to see if I was getting my color relationships to read.

Here's the sketch I did in the field. I have't worked on it in the studio. I'm thinking I might use as a reference for a larger painting.


Cape Neddick is right next to Ogunquit so I went over to the Marginal Way next to see what was cooking.


The snow on the rocks was gorgeous. There was big surf crashing as the sun dropped down behind the trees. I was running out of light so I did a quick sketch . The temps were dropping fast and the wind was picking up.









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