2.7.24 Wednesday - Re-Acquired Paintings 5 and 6 of 10

This week I’ll be sharing two pieces of original artwork per day, pieces I’ve just recently re-acquired from exhibitions, or no longer in direct rotation for some of the more competitive show opportunities I’ve been pursuing.

While the work itself isn’t brand new - what I’ll be offering this week will be a bit of information about how the pieces came about, or other tidbits about each.  All the pieces are, as of this writing (the previous week), available through my website store.

Additionally, if you ever see something on my site yet you cannot find it in the Available Works section of my website, just ask me about it, by replying to one of these emails, using the contact page of my website, or sending me a new email at David@DavidOSmithArtist.com

Today’s pieces:

“Plein Air, Sailboat from Jack Block Park, 1-2pm, 8.8.23”, watercolor, 30 x 42”, 2023

This painting was made while observing Puget Sound from Seattle’s Jack Block Park, between West Seattle and Harbor Island, on a calm day in August.  The sailboat is not a contrivance, but appeared as I was working, sailing way from me as I painted, its wake stretching wide across the still blue water.  One other white sail of a boat can be seen on the horizon line in the righthand corner.  The sky was very blue, and the water very reflective of that color.  As I began painting at 1pm, the sun high overheard tends to allow for a very pure blue atmosphere on fairly unclouded days.  I wanted to render the sky as I saw it, with the atmosphere lightening up approaching the horizon, and the cluster of white and gray clouds over the distant landforms.  I was careful as I laid in washes to leave the paper pure white for the white of the sailboats in the foreground and background - that is not white gouache touched in after - but the white of the paper, preserved and kept dry.  This painting came together quickly.  It is a simple work, almost sentimental if I’d invented it - but this was the scene as I observed it, in the heat at midday in August.

“Plein Air, Looking SE from Alki, 11:30am-12:30, 8.11.23”, watercolor, 22 x 30”, 2023

What comes to mind first about this piece is the extreme time pressure I made it under.  I knew I had to be in the U district at 1pm, starting this painting in Alki at 11:30am.  The scene was too beautiful not to paint - I was drawn to the lapping waves and the wet sand they left on the shore, the dark silhouette of the outcropping of concrete, with people observing the Sound, and the playfulness of the shipping cranes and other industrial building populating Harbor Island and the horizon of Beacon Hill behind.  I love the color of the water at this time of day, midday to early afternoon.  It is a blue with a significant amount of red in it, and I am always reminded of the work of Spanish painter Joaquin Sorolla, his masterful plein air oil paintings of the waters on the beaches of Valencia, the accuracy of his reddish ultramarine blues.  The clouds this day were doing wonderful things, so I began as quickly as I could with the sky, to leave some white of the paper for the white of the clouds, then working into the lightest colors of the beach, the ultramarine water, leaving white for the noon sunlight sparkling along the horizon line.  Just my luck that a couple was observing the waters as I painted the concrete overlook.  I don’t ever contrive figures or boats or birds to appear where I haven’t seen them, but if they appear on their own, fair game.  I considered, at about 12:15pm, calling it a day and returning on a different day with similar conditions… but instead I pushed as rapidly as I could to render the rocks in the foreground and the waves on the beach, all in one furious go, as I knew I’d have to leave in fifteen minutes to make my U-district appointment.  I was glad I stayed.  I didn’t quite nail the effect of the waves reflecting the brown of the sand, nor did I do true justice to the reflections on the rocks, but for the time I had it was a decent effort.  I re-visited similar waves conditions in the painting “Plein Air, 10-11:30am, Waves at Golden Gardens, 10.3.23”.