Bay Bridge Oil on Linen I had two things I wanted to do this morning. I wanted to paint a landscape and get my flat tire fixed. On the way to Mobile the day before, I ran over a bungee cord. I didn't run over one of the colorful cords with plastic ends, but the industrial black rubber type with STEEL HOOKS on the ends. I wanted to paint the bay and there was a tire place in Daphne so it seemed to fit. The weather was completely overcast, which actually made a pretty good day for painting. There were no shadows to chase and I didn't worry about having the canvas in the sun. I thought if I could get down to the water, I'd get a good panorama of the bay with marsh grass. There was a water runoff at the bottom of a parking lot near I10 and beside the runoff was a sign “ Do Not Feed the Alligators”. Nevertheless, I was more worried about a good composition than reptiles. It turned out that I couldn't get past the end of the runoff and only had a view of the Interstate. After spending a long time just looking at reflections of the traffic passing, I thought this perspective might work even though it would be a different piece than I had first imagined. Things went pretty well. The light was even, the traffic hummed, birds sang, and every now and then a fish jumped. No painting is easy but I thought this may just “paint itself”. Once that thought entered my head, the sun came out and shone on my canvas, the humidity shot up to 150%, and more fish jumped. Now jumping fish aren't a problem, but these were big. Instead of thinking of what color to mix, I thought, “If only I had a fishing rod instead of a paintbrush”. The painting at this point had become a memory piece. Sunlight lit up the bridge, the clouds started to break, and I had to keep the overcast picture in my mind. I heard the splashing of fish then quiet followed. I heard a large splash and saw the welling up of water. Then a 10 foot alligator surfaced like a U-boat. The painting looked good at this point. |
|
||||
Click to enlarge