Painting Inspired By Memories - 'Sunset Over Hawksnest Bay'

A Travel Inspired Painting ..

What a great day to reminisce .. About the memories we created on a trip we took to St John a couple of years ago. Yesterday we received eight inches of snow sleet and freezing rain. My mind wants to escape this frozen landscape and retreat back to a warmer and far less depressing moment in time. Since I cannot just get up and take a flight back to the islands I guess I will have to try and escape there through painting.

The Inspiration

So today I am going to share a new painting with you, .. One I created about a week or so ago. The inspiration came from an evening we spent watching the sunset from a bar called The Windmill Bar.

The Windmill Bar sat atop a high part of the island .. And looked out over Lovango Channel and Cay along with several other small islands that surround it. I am calling the piece Sunset Over Hawksnest Bay because Hawksnest Beach and the bay can be seen in the foreground just below the bar’s viewing area.

It was a bit of a sketchy drive and a slow climb up the mountain .. To reach the bar, but the trip was well worth it. The views from up there during the day or evening are absolutely spectacular. The food was nothing to write home about and the drinks were about what you would expect anywhere, but that view made all the difference. That is really what you were paying for. We arrived early, watched the sunset, and took plenty of pictures. I am sure you can see how it would be inspiring whether you channel that inspiration into creating art or simply store those memories away for a future visit.

The Painting ..

Given the cold weather and icy environment we are dealing with right now, .. I clearly needed that inspiration. I looked through the photos I had taken and decided to loosely interpret what I had seen on a small three by six piece of watercolor paper. I was not trying to copy anything exactly but instead just wanted to practice painting a sunset sky. If you have read my other posts you may remember that I am still learning watercolors. They are very challenging and do not always do what you think they are going to do, but I was going to try anyway. That is exactly what I did. It may not be the most perfect painting but it was a good attempt and I learned a lot, especially that I need to lay down a base layer before adding clouds in the foreground. Surprisingly that small piece taught me enough that when you see some of my future work you should notice a big difference in the sky details.

I will not go into a step by step process .. on this but rather just lay out the challenges and successes. I started by laying out the islands before painting anything else. After all that is what I would normally do when working in oils. With watercolor I probably should have waited and first painted a base layer of water and sky before laying the islands in over top. The black tends to bleed out into the lighter colors if I am not careful. Letting them dry completely was key. Either way it worked out fine in this case.

After the islands were in .. I started work on the sky and water. I slowly layed in layers of color, waiting for them to dry between each layer.

At first the clouds looked to chunky .. Possibly a little unrealistic, or maybe I thought that there were too many of them. After a while, I actually didn't mind the clouds all that much. There are so many of them that I do not think it would have mattered what base color was behind them either. I like how I kept the outer portions of the painting darker and worked back toward a focal point on the left where I placed the sun, just about ready to dip below the horizon. That area I kept bright with whites and yellows and surrounded it with dark clouds and islands to try and create a sense of brightness.

When I was finished with the watercolors .. I decided to brighten up some highlighted areas (as seen above) and sun rays using white oil paint. I have used oil paint in the past for touch ups because the dark watercolor does not bleed through. It usually works pretty well but in this case I may have added too many sun streaks. Whatever I did I'm not one hundred percent loving it, and that is okay. I will take that information and apply it better on the next piece. I might be overly critical of my work but I think it is something all artists feel. I will channel it in to improving my skills and applying what I learned into the next piece.

After I finished .. I noticed that some of the black watercolor from the islands had bled into the border I created around the edge of the painting. Most of my watercolors have a white border because I tape the paper down to a hard surface to keep it from curling while I apply water. The black paint bleeding into that area bothered me, so I took a black Sharpie and filled in the rest of the border. It definitely darkens the piece quite a bit, but I could always fix that by adding a white mat around it if I really wanted to.

Finished Painting! ..

'Sunset Over Hawksnest Bay'

I guess that is about it for this post .. I tried to keep it short but clearly that did not happen since I am over 1000 words again. Since finishing this painting I have completed several others, probably about a dozen or so. Some of them are sunset and sunrise scenes where I think you will see an improvement in my ability to create a softer and more realistic sky.

Until next time I am going to try and stay warm.. Huxley and Hazel are not very impressed with the weather situation we are dealing with either, but like me they are making the best of it. Huxley peering out past the snow piles hoping to see a glimpse of bare turf. And Hazel thinking it may be best to try and eat all of the snow in order to reveal a nice grassy patch. I applaud their efforts positive thoughts!

Stay warm out there.

Thank you for swinging by my blog and checking out the post. Have a great day!

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