St. Simons Island, Georgia

This fresh little watercolor is my Painting A Day coming fresh from my plein aire session this morning on location in St. Simons Island, Georgia. As I sat in the bright sunshine on the pier I was able to capture this 104-ft. tower while enjoying the banter taking place between the fishermen who as far as I was able to determine are probably regulars. Looking back to my left, a giant coastal oak sprawls to the left and some smaller trees are on the left with a lush green lawn in front. The lawn ends abruptly with a breakwater of large rocks dropping off to water below. Last night at low tide there was a small area of beach. This long fishing pier juts out to a "T" at the end. The initial part of the pier is covered, but I was unable to see the lighthouse under cover and had to paint in the sun.

If you want to know more history about the lighthouse, click here. Then be sure to click your back arrow to come back to my blog.

It took some adjusting in Photoshop to get the blues even close to correct. Blues and reds are tough to tweak, unless you get lucky and your camera catches the color just right. I took photos outside under cloudy skies, inside on a white background by a window, and inside away from the window but in very good light. The low light photo turned out to be the best, but still didn't pick up the blue of the sky just right or the greens in the oak tree. All I have to say is that I am so much happier with the painting than I am with the photo, but I guess the painting is what's most important, huh?

For purchase information about this 7 1/2 x 8 1/2 inch watercolor painted on professional quality (Arches 140-lb Cold Press) watercolor paper with Yarka watercolors, click here. St. Simons Lighthouse is available in my Etsy shop, DreamON.

Abandoned in the Fog

Today was my opportunity to gallery sit in the Artists' Guild Gallery of Anna Maria Island. It was apparent that the legions of tourists that frequent the island in "season" have abandoned us for the summer. Quiet would be an understatement.

I brought my travel watercolor kit just in case. This includes a small palette of Yarka watercolors (which are more than adequate for the job), some Viva paper towels, three watercolor brushes, some pencils for sketching, an eraser, a sketchbook and some watercolor paper. I also brought one of my packets of photos that I want to paint.


After an initial sale, there were some other guests numbering in total 15, and then it got very quiet, so I got out my stuff and began to paint a watercolor of a sailboat in total fog. Actually I think the picture might have been taken last summer when there were a number of fires in Florida and it was really smoke and fog, but it might have been just fog. Anyway the background of the photo was pretty much totally white, which I thought was a really cool effect.

I am calling this painting Abandoned In The Fog. The sailboat, moored on the lake near where we live, has obviously seen better days and is a stationery object, loved by birds as a roost. I kept wishing I would see someone come to love it, but after a year in that position, someone moved it closer to shore, and we can't see it any longer. Actually I loved having it in my line of sight, but oh, well.

I will put this painting up on my Etsy site. Click here.