the i-cloud, the jewel, and the fisherman

                                                                                   ATE

Evening Prayer Brunswick Heads, 13 May, 2021, oil on canvas board, 25 X 20 cm

                                                                                  JAB

Evening Prayer Brunswick Heads, 13 May, 2021, oil on canvas board, 25 X 20 cm

DGG

Evening Prayer Brunswick Heads, 13 May, 2021, oil on canvas board, 25 X 20 cm

Three studies from the other night, a very hazy sky, quite beautiful, but I couldn't get a handle on it. I was a bit distracted by a Spanish woman who had come up to talk and watch. She's lovely woman, a lively, creative gal who loved what I was doing but it created an enormous distraction for me. I have so little time there during those moments when the sky opens everything up like when a soprano hits a a peak in the final act.

Many people come by so I am used to now, though I am still generally camera-shy. Over these past few years I even agreed to allowing photos and videos to be taken. And though I don't catch most of them, there are many who sneak photos and videos when they think I don't see them. Anyway, I am a big hit with most of the kids who come up unabashedly and want to know just what the heck I am doing there on that dune.

Well, I struggled the other night, but it was still so lovely to be working there. I do accept everything, even all those pictures I consider to be failures, dissecting them mentally, then discarding them later in my sleep.

But this evening, alone and ready to pack up, I thought to myself: one more for the road! This became the third study of the evening, the one with three yellow clouds. 

I feel so lucky because I thought it was a bit of a mess when I packed up in the dark. But the next morning when I retrieved it from the boot of the car I liked it immediately. It's always a mystery to me how what comes up in a session is almost never ever intended. Wished for, most certainly, but never could it really be anticipated. In my case, it's because I work so fast, like lightning. My creative process seems to be downloaded every millisecond from the i-cloud above. From where else would it arrive? It was certainly not in my possession when I set out to paint.

I chalk it up to the magic of painting out in Nature.

The first two studies proved to be just 'so so', somewhat uncertain. And that uncertainly  led me blindly to the third and final study which was the jewel of the evening. It was the prize which the fisherman had waited for with patience.