Watercolors: From Sea to Shining Sea.

Sad as this may seem, I just don’t really have anything clever or funny to say today.  (...quiet, Kelly !)    I think I just need to re-charge my Smart-Ass batteries for a few days.

Anyway, it’s been a while since I’ve posted some artwork.  So why not right now?

Today’s theme today is the ocean.  I have two seascapes,  showing opposite sides of the continent.

This first one is the Atlantic coast of New Hampshire. (Yes!  N.H. has a tiny coastline…something I tend to keep forgetting.)

This was a late-winter scene from a few years back.  Normally, that time of year, I’d have been off skiing somewhere.   But I had a torn ACL at the time, and most physical activities were still off-limits.   I was bored out of my skull, and decided to do a road-trip from Ottawa to the New England coast for the weekend, to see what I could find.

From the painting, you’d think New Hampshire has a pristine, untamed coast.  But what this scene doesn’t show is what’s behind it…the myriad hotels, antique stores, fast-food joints, beachfront houses, go-cart tracks, roller coasters, souvenir shops, and places where you can buy fried dough.    With the exception of a few State Parks, pretty much every square foot of the Atlantic coast from Portland to Cape Cod has been claimed and/or  developed in some way or another.

Fortunately, all those places were closed and empty when I was there.   It was like a ghost town.   That’s why I always like to see these places off-season.  You get to appreciate the seashore as it is…without the Touron crowds.

The second scene is the Pacific Coast in Northern Oregon.    This was mid-July, and it was a typical West-Coast damp, drizzly day.

But the beach was hauntingly beautiful, and I took a lot of photos.  This day was a gold-mine for inspiring a lot artwork.   This painting is just one of several that I plan to do.

What a contrast from the East Coast!  The beach was mostly deserted.    Consisting of jagged rocks and black sand, and surrounded by coniferous forest, it had a raw, untamed aspect to it.   One can still get a sense of what Lewis and Clark must have felt when they first laid eyes on the Pacific.

Much of the entire Oregon coast is left untouched like this.  I don’t think I saw a single Ferris wheel.  And that’s a GOOD thing.

Coincidentally, I also drove here.  I was out of work at the time, and the job market had slowed down for the summer. I decided to take some time off, and do another road-trip.

(Though this second road-trip took slightly longer…!)

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Tags: Atlantic Ocean, Fried Dough, New England, New Hamphsire, Oregon, original art work, Pacific Ocean, painting, watercolors

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