Beaches

Sounds like a Bette Midler movie, right? Is that who it was? I’m sure it had something to do with cancer, so I did not watch it. I don’t like moves about people dying from horrible diseases.

Beaches are the subject matter of my most recent series of paintings. It sounds SO FREAKING CHEESY, but I can’t help it. My hubbo and I went to Rehoboth Beach, Delaware for a weekend by ourselves back in October 2007. It was a strange time because most places had shut down for the winter season, but we arrived on a random 83 degree F day. Overcast, people lying on the beach just cause they could. I took a bunch of pictures of this beach. Simple shapes, salty smells, natural, earthy colors. The beach really inspired me to want to get back to a very basic place in my painting. A little bit representational, but mostly abstract. Uncomplicated fields of color and texture. Peaceful.

I was out of commission painting with oils once I discovered I was pregnant with the girls, and really, was too nauseous and uncomfortable to do any other kind of art. Which means my hiatus from painting lasted almost a solid year and a half. Was able to start up with some watercolors, gouache and ink drawings once they started regularly sleeping at night, probably when they were around 7 or 8 months old. Then, by some magical arrangement of the planets, I was able to convince my good friend EJ to let me use her back porch as a painting studio. Suddenly my painting supplies and canvases were in a new home and the smell of turp wafted through the air. I’ve completed one piece so far, which will probably end up being my most representational. The others are in various stages of drying and waiting for more layers to be applied.

Haven’t been over to paint in maybe two months due to my mom being sick (her and my dad are my babysitters once or twice a week while I escape to run errands and paint) and now my own sickliness. Hopefully March will prove more productive.