Scallop Seascape

This month's exhibit at OPAL is landscape themed.  Landscapes are something that I haven't been very motivated to paint, and the few that I have attempted have proven extremely difficult--particularly if painting outside and on site.  The world shifts and moves as wind, light, and shadows manipulate your supposed stagnate model.  It can be completely frustrating.  I suppose also that I prefer to look at things up close rather than at a distance.  I'm more comfortable painting a unit (a person or a chair) rather than an environment. 

So, my schedule being such that I didn't have much time to generate a landscape, I considered abandoning any plans to do so.  But having returned from a beach vacation on the Atlantic ocean, I felt called to try to depict my meditations of patterns and rhythms of the sea:  waves, lines on sea shells, fish scales, and bubbles.  Actually, the sensation of standing in the sand as the waves erode my ground left me dizzy especially with the relentless, roaring waves and whipping wind.  The ocean pulled me out of balance, unsettling me.  It was sort of a weird game that a toddler might play--rushing to my feet and then quickly running away before being caught.  While playing the game, I realized that I find comfort in nature's orders and how they can be found at both the mirco and macro levels.  This kind of discovery feels more than satisfying--it feels joyful. 

In the end I realize that I didn't really paint a landscape, but a seascape!  Oh well, there will be another opportunity to take a look at land.