Ocean Sunrise

This is another painting my March 2010 cruise to the Bahamas yielded. I've been thinking about this one for a while, and finally decided it was time to give it a try. I always woke up very early on the ship when we were at sea. Our cabin was on the starboard side of the ship, so we faced away from the sunrise on the way to the Bahamas. I had to get up early and get dressed and go up to the Sun Deck to watch the sunrise then. But on the way back to port in Jacksonville we faced east, and I woke up early in the morning and captured the sunrise right from our cabin. I'm so glad I sprang the extra $50 or so to get an exterior cabin with a window. Not only did I enjoy the view, but I got a painting out of it too, LOL.

The Straw Market

This is another picture from my Bahamas series, from my trip there in March. The Straw Market is a large open-air tented market in downtown Nassau, and arguably one of the major tourist attractions in Nassau. Apparently it started in order to sell, as its name implies, items crafted from straw. However it now seems to sell everything under the sun, and I found it a very uncomfortable experience to actual wander through the straw market. You are bombarded on all sides by vendors trying to sell you things - and I couldn't get out of there fast enough!

But in appearance it's a unique and colorful experience. I only took one photo of the market, right at the entry to it. Once inside the incessant sales pitches, and the urge to keep moving, kept me from getting any other shots. I thought the one I did manage to capture had a lot of color. I've been staring at it for months, longing to try to paint the scene, yet positive I didn't have the ability to carry it off.

But tonight I finally found myself brave enough to give it a try. I was sure it was going to be an exercise in frustration however, and one destined for some hair-pulling before winding up in the round bin. But as I got into it I had a lot more fun than I expected, and it actually ended up turning out far better than I expected also, so I've decided it's a keeper after all, much to my own surprise! :-)

Far Tortuga

Well the show at the Clarence Dillon Library in Bedminster, NJ got hung yesterday, so my lighthouses are all up for the next month. Opening reception is tomorrow at the library from 6:30-8:00 PM. I hope people show up!

But that left me free to try something else tonight, and I pulled out this photo from my trip to the Bahamas in March. I just loved the sign and the roofs, and the seagull. And I even bought some rum cakes to bring home to people as gifts. :-)

So one more for my Bahamian series. I got more paintings out of that trip than I ever expected I would. I'll have to scout around my snapshots and see if I might come up with any more. I wish I had a better photo of the Straw Market! I do have one. I'll have to see if I can turn that into a painting somehow.

Hog Island Light

This is another painting from my March trip to the Bahamas. I guess I managed to get enough paintable subjects to be able to call it a "series" now, LOL. This is the lighthouse on Paradise Island at the entrance to Nassau harbor. Paradise Island used to be known as Hog Island, but I guess it acquired a new and more appealing name when big tourist resorts were built on the island. :-)

You can read about the lighthouse here. It says there about it: "This is the oldest and best known lighthouse in the Bahamas and the oldest surviving lighthouse in the West Indies." and also: "Good view from cruise ships entering the harbor." This is true too, as my first view of the light was from the cruise ship. In fact I have another photo of it that I took from the ship which I may also try to turn into a painting.

Bahamian Cottage

Well this is number four in my Bahamian group of paintings. Is that enough to be considered a series? :-) I saw this cute little cottage when I was out sight-seeing, just down the road from Fort Fincastle. I had to walk down the road to take a picture of it because it appealed to me. This was done on 9x12 Wallis paper.

Bahamian Shore

I'm still on my Bahamian theme. I had really hoped that a trip to the Bahamas would give me a chance to get some fabulous reference photos - but it just didn't work out. Between the weather being overcast, with flat lighting, the whole time, and our trip to the Half Moon Cay getting cancelled due to ship problems I wound up with very few decent photos. Mostly just tourist snapshots in and around the city of Nassau.

But heck, I'll never get to the Bahamas again. I have to try to come up with *something*. So I'm trying to use my meager snapshot stock to come up with a series anyway. This painting was based on a snapshot I took from the van I was riding in for the "Historical Highlights" tour I took. Just like my last few works it's done on 9x12 Wallis paper.

Fort Fincastle

I'm still trying to get a few paintings out of my Bahamas cruise earlier in the month, even though I didn't get the landscape photos I had hoped for. But when will I ever get to the Bahamas again? Probably never. So I have to take my tourist snapshots and *try* to get a few paintings from them. LOL. One of the spots I visited was Fort Fincastle in Nassau, up near the highest point on the island of New Providence. This painting is from a photo I took of the entrance to the fort area itself, though there is not a whole lot left of the actual fort!

This was done, like my last few paintings, on a sheet from a 9x12 of Wallis paper. I had not liked Wallis for the longest time because it is such a pastel-eater. But I'm starting to warm to it now. I wonder if it is a bit less toothy these days? When I first tried it my fingers were worn raw and bleeding from trying to use them to blend - but it has never happened on these sheets of Wallis. Could be because I blend less these days too. :-)

Nassau Harbor

It's been weeks since I have been able to get to my art work, but tonight I finally got to to class again for the first time in over a month. I'm just home from a cruise to the Bahamas which is how I managed to miss two classes, LOL. I was hoping to get a bunch of great reference photos to be able to do a Bahamas series of paintings, but for various reasons didn't get many at all. Mainly as I was only in Nassau and I was hoping for more landscapey type shots, not city shots. But our trip to Half Moon Cay, where I had hoped to get the nature shots, got cancelled because of problems with the ship.

But I have a small number of photos that *might* make paintings, so I could still have a small series I suppose. This is the first one I tried to work with. The water truly was that amazing blue color you see in all the travel literature. I loved it.

This was done on a 9x12 sheet of Wallis paper - various pastels.