January 30, 2020 - A New Year, Two Views

All images are photographed late in the evening for posting the same night we paint them.  We strive to reproduce the color of the paintings here as close to our originals as we can, but some variation is probable.  The paintings are labeled with our initials preceding the date label and title.  The date label is Month/Day/Order Painted. 

All of these paintings can be purchased on our website.  This link will take you to the page where they're posted... Salt Marsh Studios.

Marc's Day

Yesterday's loss of a lot of writing about some things that I wanted to chat about, sort of popped my balloon.  Hopefully, that won't happen again.  When we left the house this morning to go paint, I had decided to get back to painting with the acrylics today.  Well... It was overcast, humid and below 50ºF, about 47º this morning.  I recall reading about the temperature range that Golden Open Acrylics are okay to paint with in, on their website a while back, and decided to go back and reread that information.  Turns out that they don't form a paint film if the temperature is below 49ºF.  Aha!!!  That's why they haven't been setting up or drying for a long time... it's been too cold for them many of the days we've been painting.  With that information, I decided not to use them again today. I stuck with the oil paints.  Glad I did.  We painted most of the day at Fort Pulaski, in the middle of the recent thinning of the forest clutter and debris from recent storm damage.  It was wonderful in the middle of the jungle, a ready made cedar mulch forest floor for us because they shredded and mulched all that they cut down.  In my first two paintings, all of the light warm color of the floor of the forest is the cedar mulch, so deep in places it was hard to walk on. Smelled heavenly, and we were out of the 15-20 mph winds.

Tomorrow is our last day of this adventure.  It saddens me to think about that, but it's been a magnificent month so far.  Hopefully the lousy weather will let us bring you another half dozen interesting paintings on Saturday morning.

MH - 1/30/1 - Clearing

The morning started out chilly, windy and overcast.  By about 25 minutes into this painting, that all changed and every minute brought more sun onto us and the subjects we were painting.  I am enjoying painting palms and especially the small palmettos.  There's no shortage of them to practice on, and they're growing everywhere!  This is an oil painting, as are the other two from today.  I think that I'll leave the acrylics for another time at this point.  

MH - 1/30/2 - Slash

Slash is what the jungle now looks like in the interior of the forest surrounding Ft Pulaski.  When we started painting here earlier in the month, this looked like an area that you would Never want to be standing in the middle of.  Snakes, mosquitoes, spiders and who knows what else would come to mind.  After the park personnel's clearing work, you could have a great picnic in the middle of this area now.  As time goes on, the new growth is going to make for a great wildlife habitat, and for some great paintings! 

MH 1/30/3 - Spanish Light

The last painting of the day was painted back on Spanish Hammock, a familiar subject area for us, because we were running late and the Ft Pulaski park gate closes at 5:00pm sharp!  I loved this back lit area of typical island/southern coast growth.  I told Dottie earlier that after painting all of the complicated forest earlier in the day, I wanted to paint something simple for my last one to rest the brain and the eyes.  You can see how well that went.  Thanks for looking in.

Dottie's Day

My family always tries to participate in a 5K here in Tybee on the Saturday after Thanksgiving.  The money goes to a great cause and it is always a wonderful time.  Some of us run, others of us walk (I'm in the walking group)  but we all enjoy a brisk morning on the beach followed by beer and pizza and lots of laughs afterwards.  This year, I saved my bib number because of the quote on it.  Can you read it?  You may have heard it before.  It's by George Lucas and reads "You simply have to put one foot in front of the other and keep going.  Put blinders on and plow right ahead."

I love that!  I also identify with it...I think that is how I have lived most of my life.  Art is no exception.  This month of painting has been no exception.  It has been one of the most amazing, fun and enlightening things I have ever done.  But it wasn't easy.  Not at all.  

Some days were cold and windy and rainy and miserable.  It was hard this month juggling and trying to find time to take care of all the other parts of life that aren't painting.  I have struggled a lot with my eyes this month and trying to figure out a way to work around their sensitivity to light.  Some days painting itself, was frustrating and hard.  When you know how you want to paint and you just can't do it... that can be so discouraging.  But despite all the frustrations, irritations and obstacles, I just kept going.  A bad day meant getting up the next day to try it all over again.  It wasn't easy but then things that are usually worth doing or trying to achieve rarely are.  

I keep my number up beside my bathroom mirror so I will see it every morning and remind myself to just put one foot in front of the other and keep moving forward. Sometimes when you don't know what to do, just the act of doing that leads to wonderful things.

DTL - 1/30/1 - Laid Back

It was nice to see the sun in the forecast again but it didn't show its head until I had started this painting.  I loved this messy tangle of trees and branches and it would have been nice to have had a much larger canvas to tackle it. I am really going to miss painting outside every day but I am not going to miss 9"x12" canvases.  This was done on a panel like the two that gave me fits yesterday.  I do love them for subjects like this though.  

DTL - 1/30/2 - The Better Half

Not far from where I painted the first one was this cedar that had lost its whole right side. It had character though.  I loved the lines of it... it looks like a hand, don't you think?  It sat amid lots of immature palms and undergrowth and had such a nice sculptural quality to it.  I once again was wishing for a bigger canvas to capture the rest of the tree.  

DTL - 1/30/3 - Three Dead Trees

Not a very imaginitive name?! lol!  But accurate!  I loved the way these three trees seemed to be dancing at the edge of the marsh.  This scene needed another hour to paint it.  It was way to complicated to attempt in what time I had before the light left it. But it was fun to try and get some of the crazy patterns of the greens.  I will definitely try this bigger in the studio when I have more time to organize the chaos of it all.