Christmas Eve with warm thoughts of the Beach

Its Christmas Eve and while my children do some last minute wrapping, warm thoughts of Exuma and the beaches are dancing through my head.

I have several paintings I have been working on of Stocking Island and Three Sisters Beach and I am hoping to finish them over the Christmas holidays. Some of them are almost done, just a few splashes of paint here and there. A couple of them were done as rough painting sketches while on the island, but are good enough to finish now that I see them with a clear mind.

One in particular of Three Sisters Beach was done during a really windy day in November a year ago. I had been sitting on the stone wall by the rocks near the road entrance to the beach. The waves were constant, huge noisy, exciting. The wind blew water and sand around me, on me and I loved every second of it. The energy of the stormy weather gave me energy to attempt to capture the waves in action, the clouds moving at a steady pace, were painted quickly across the top of my paper. And in the back of my mind, I am thinking I need to finish to get as much done as I can before it rains.

But smiling, feeling the strength of nature around me, it was moving, it was a total
creative artistic moment.
And then it started pouring rain and I ran for the cover of the stand in the parking lot, waiting out the rain, waiting to walk home. Home during that visit was a cozy bedroom in my friends house at the end of the beach.

So tomorrow after the unwrapping, the lazy morning of Christmas togetherness, I will head to my painting room upstairs and will give myself a gift for the holiday season.
The gift of hopefully, uninterrupted painting.

Happy New Year!x0
Joanne

Success on Stocking Island

It worked!

Walking around on Stocking Island, enjoying the sun the water and finding
the perfect quiet spot to paint helped to create a successful painting.

While walking down on the beach, there is a bend leading to the quieter side
where the boaters have anchored in a bay for shelter. It is away from the Sunday
crowd, the music from Chat and Chill and very few people seem to wander around there.

I picked a spot with a view of the Salt Beacon atop a hill. Blending greens and yellows and blues I created the hills, surrounded by the turquoise water, and topped
off with the blue sky and fluffy white clouds. The heat and wind actually helped the painting this time as it dried quickly enough to go back in and add the detail.
Adding the white sandy paths down the hill with the Salt Beacon and outlining some trees on the hill added colour and brightened the final piece.

I never mind when people stop and watch me paint and the few that walked by were really quiet, although I had my ipod on, because the music helps to block out the other sounds around me. After going for a swim to wash off the green paint I got on my leg, I headed back to the noisy part of the beach for some mahi mahi and a glass of wine. Yum!

I usually give away my paintings that I do on the beach. To me they never seem perfect enough to sell, like the ones I spend hours on at home.

Tomorrow I think I will just paint on the beach in front of my hotel.

Joanne

"Fall in Exuma"

Its 9:30am and I am sitting on my verandah waiting to catch the water taxi over to Stocking Island. It will be busy at Chat 'N Chill , the restaurant, but I know where to find the quiet spots to paint, and there is the convenience of washrooms to clear up my paints. Not to mention the yummy bb-qued sea food.

Windy cool mornings in the Fall in Exuma, means the best painting time is in the afternoon, but it's taken me a week to relax enough to want to paint and not to be distracted by thoughts of home, work and snow in Canada.

So I think I will have to pull up a beach towel and just start painting and who knows maybe the wait will be worth it. Maybe the wind will help clear the clutter from my mind giving it an opening for that creative energy to move my brushes in a good direction.

During my first week on the island, I have volunteered art lessons to a couple of children on the beach and at my hotel, sharing my painting supplies and my passion for painting. This is great and I packed extra paper for this reason.

I've met up with friends who live on Exuma which is always nice to break up the quiet time of travelling alone, and to see them again is quality time.

Time to get on the sunscreen and pack up my painting supplies for the beach. Maybe
I will try close up scenes of the water the plants, something different. Not that
I am tired of the blue sky, the water and palm trees, I think I am just tired.
I think I just need some vitamin D from the sun to energize me.

Joanne

The Atlantic Side -part 2

My second day of working on the painting of the Atlantic Side of Stocking Island, is turning out to be a slow process. The final hour, the touchups are always tricky and I find I have to take a lot of little breaks, to step back and not get too caught up in all the detail.

This is often when I decide to start a separate painting, working between the two of them switching back and forth. With patience, skill and a bit of luck, I will end up with two good paintings in two weeks.

But once in a while I have to decide wether to continue and work it out, or save my paint, and throw out a painting that isnt worth the struggle. I know other Artists feel the same way and when you have worked as an Artist for a long time, you find it gets easier to do this, because you know the next one will be worth it.

Joanne

The Atlantic Side

On the Atlantic side of Stocking Island , there is a beautiful beach which the lucky
guests of the St. Francis Resort can reach within seconds from their cottages.

I started a painting of that beach today, from a photo I took on a really windy , hot and sunny day last March. The waves spill onto the beach in large brushstrokes of white paint, and can be seen through the long grass at the top of the hill at the resort. The beach is long and wide with lots of room for the waves to spread out after crashing onto the sandy shore.

Its nice being able to get that feeling back again as I paint the shore mixing the blues of the water into the soft shades of brown, of the sand. The feeling of being overwhelmed by nature. The waves were huge that day, and the sun hot enough to quickly sunburn.

Its challenging working on this painting since I am not as familiar with this beach and have only walked it twice, but I like my painting so far.

I will be back on Exuma this Fall, so I will explore this beach and favorite spots soon. I am so excited for my trip, it feels like forever since I was there.

Joanne

The Water Taxi in Exuma

Most visitors and locals in Exuma will have had a ride on the local Water Taxi, a comfortable, slow moving boat, that can take you to other nearby islands, for a small fee.

The bright yellow boat is easy to spot going across to Stocking Island and the ride can be a lot of fun and a good way to see Exuma from a different point of view. Its part of the whole Exuma experience. I have taken a lot of photos from the taxi, that I can paint from at home in Vancouver, and its a treat to be surrounded by all that beautifull blue water.

I wanted to do a painting of the boat docked at Stocking Island, waiting for visitors to return to the main land. I painted it a few years ago, when it had the original white colour, so it was time to paint it again and it is just as hard to paint this time as it was the first. Trying to get the angles of the windows, the way the boat sits in the water, is tricky. Painting the ripples caused by the boat along the shore line is the fun part, just as challenging, but fun.

Just a few more hours of painting, adding the sailboats and homes in the background, then I will be done.

Joanne

Walking the beach by "Big D's"

I love going to "Big D's" Its always peacefull , always relaxing , fun , and so beautiful and I took a lot of photos to paint from, while walking the beach in March.

Even on the windy days, there is a calmness of the horizon line, the sky and the water.

While painting the shoreline, I could feel my breathing slowing down with the gentle waves, and waves are always fun to paint. To work the blue, green of the water, the sand and white of the waves with paint is so much fun. I watch the waves all the time when I am in Exuma, walking along the shore, stopping to sit and feel it clear my mind. And I have to feel it, before I paint it, to bring it to life for myself, and for you. I want you to hear the waves, in the movements I make with my paintbrushes, to feel the weightlessness of large white clouds in a blue sky.

Just a few more palm leaves to paint, then I am finished this painting.

Joanne

"Harbour View" Apartment, George Town

Please visit my gallery and see this painting along with a few new ones in July

Joanne

Warm Shadows in George Town

While walking around George Town one day, minutes from the local grocery store I stopped to lean against a bridge showing a view of the pink Harbour View Apts. It always captures my attention, but today it was also the warm shadows of a huge coco plum tree that drew me in, closer,to the water .

The warmth of sunlight splashing spots of yellow on the cool blue/greens of the grass, looked like velvet, so smooth and soft .

I knew I would have fun, trying to capture the texture and shades with my watercolours trying to recreate the peacefull feeling of standing under the tree.
I felt a connection to the relaxing stillness and wanted to show that in the calm lines of the blues I used to paint the water and the trees surrounding that huge and beautiful pink of the apartment.

I think that spot will be the first place I go to the next time I am in town.

joanne

EXUMA first Diary Entry

Just a few days left of my Spring trip to Exuma the Bahamas my home away from home.
After a busy first week of meeting with local businesses to promote my paintings,
the second week was all about relaxing, recharging my creative spirit.

Walking along the calm shores of Stocking Island soaking up the blues of the water, the sky, together with the heat of the sun, reminds me of why I love Exuma so much

I had my favorite beach, 3 sisters all to myself again, I love painting 3 Sisters, the rocks, the pathway by the stone wall, every step giving me energy while calming me at the same time.

I spent a lot of time photographing new views of places I have walked before and one place I had never been before . The Atlantic side of St Francis Resort welcomed me with a roar of waves and few people on the beach, perfect for a first time walk. I cant wait to get home and start the challenge of painting those huge white crescents in the water, and the views of palm trees and islands in the distance.

Good thing I stocked up on paint before I left, so I can dive right into the blues with my paint brushes when I get home.

Joanne