8 x 10
Plein Air Study
Oil on Linen Board
SOLD
SOLD
A few bends down the Cashie from Windsor is Johnson Mill - an old deserted lumber yard and wharf from the 1880's that is still accessible from an old dirt road that snakes through a pine plantation until it "ninety degrees" to the river as a makeshift boat ramp for perch and rock fishermen.
A few weeks ago I was fortunate enough to grab some instruction from artist Larry Moore (http://www.larrymoorestudios.com/) and as part of his class, he painted two separate paintings that when placed side by side both become one painting of the Florida lake that he lives on. Its design is of a setting sun and cypress trees, and with the exception of a few palm leaves, it looks just like the mouth of the Cashie or the Albemarle Sound with Spanish moss shading the shallows. After he completed the painting, I told him that it made me want to reach for a can of bug spray with one hand and a beer with the other as I could hear the bull frogs keying up and Duane Allman playing in the background. Duane was thrown in the mix because of the cover of his album titled An Anthology which gives me the same feeling when I look at it. I'll have to say this in one of my favorite album covers of all time, so after the workshop, I had to find a place with cypress trees to paint - which ain't that hard to do around here.
For most of the session, I was the only one down there absorbing all of the scene as I tried to lay it back on the board - hoping to come away with a good study for a much larger painting. Towards the end Ronnie Harden and Weasel Jernigan drove up and put their boats over to fish, but I had already blocked in the shadows and road so all could be finished on sight. There are many things that become part of a plein air alla prima painting that won't show up in a studio piece as all the colors and temperatures won't appear in the digital image from a flat screen. Also missing will be the constant sound of the dark water flowing against the bank, the distant hum of an outboard motor, and like today the gobble of a strutting Tom looking for some afternoon romance in the bordering tupelo swamp.
