Spring Has Sprung!

Signs of Spring
Oil on Canvas 16" X12"

After a really lousy winter, spring has suddenly exploded here on the coast of Maine. It seems like it happened all at once. So, naturally I'm out looking for spring subjects as I'm pretty sure it won't last long.
This scene is at Willard Beach, just down the street from our house. I was amazed at the array of forsythia that appeared on the point at the south end of the beach. It was a clear day, so the yellow wasn't particularly muted even though the bushes were quite distant. Then suddenly a young girl decides to wade in the frigid water, so I had the pink of her shirt complementing the light green of the distant grass and foliage and a purplish beach in the afternoon light complementing the yellow. Some nice reflections helped out, too. Sort of impressionistic and a little eye-candyish, but I liked it.


Balancing Act
Oil on Canvas 14" X 11"
Near the north end of the beach I came upon this--a small rock delicately balanced on a large one. No act of nature this. I mentioned in a previous blog that there is a guy who wanders the beach in search of the makings of such creations, sculptured "Kilroy Was Here" markers. I caught up with him early one morning in the act and asked him why he did it. "For the hell of it," says he. His sculptures usually don't last long--wind and water do them in quickly-- but this one lasted about a week and finally disappeared in one of the astronomic tides. It's just a painting of rocks, I guess--a lot of horizontals and one major vertical. The distance lighthouse you see is really not as prominent, nor is the red marker buoy to the right, but I pumped them up to get some supporting verticals to help my not- long-for rock. I also liked the colors in the foreground seaweed which when seen from further away looks just brown. Then, back at the studio...

Road to Salzburg
Oil on Canvas 16" X 12"
...I was going through some photos of our fall trip to Europe and thought one of the Austrian Alps had potential. During the trip, a cruise down the Danube, we stopped in Linz, Austria and then took a bus to Salzburg. What a neat city it is, but that's another story. Along the way, we stopped at a lake called Moon See. It was early morning, the sun was just showing over the distant peaks and the mists and fog had not yet burned off. A bit of snow-this was late November after all--was in the foreground nicely balancing what was on the mountains. I liked the multiple planes in the mountains but it was the fog roiling on the lake that stole the show. I stuck a building in the near left foreground just so I could show smoke coming from its chimney to tie in the misty elements. In a way, this was to be my farewell to winter, but it wasn't. Stay tuned.

Riverboats in Europe

Ruins of Kuernringer Castle, Durnstein, Austria
Oil on Canvas, 20" X 16"

In Late November-early December we took a two week trip to Europe. We had set up a riverboat cruise on the Danube from Nuremburg to Budapest. We had done riverboats years before--a trip on the Moselle from Koblenz to Trier, Germany. It was short but we enjoyed it. But our mode of travel changed over the years, so we did things other than riverboats. But friends told us that this way of travelling in Europe had evolved and had become very popular--not to mention relatively inexpensive (and I mean relatively).
My wife found some good off season rates on the internet through a company known as Vantage, out of Boston. The boat we were on was about 400' long with about 150 passengers. I had never been to some of these cities before, especially Vienna, nor had she, so we went for it despite the season.
We flew from Boston to Frankfurt to Munich from which we were bussed to Nuremburg. It was a wonderful trip and the weather held up pretty well and the land tours were well organized. There was a lot of free time to wander these great places, too. The on-board food was fine, but trying out the local restaurants was the real gustatory treat.
En route to Budapest from Nuremburg, we visted among other places, Passau, Linz, Vienna, Bratislava. Each has its own character and story. I absolutely fell in love with Vienna and will go back for a longer stay. Budapest is very beautiful--quite a surprise. I'll spare you the details here as the above is the only painting that has emerged from this trip so far.
The little town of Durnstein is west of Vienna in the Wachau Valley, a famous wine growing area. The vineyards are owned by individual families and the wine is made via a co-op of these growers and it is exquisite. Above the town with its ancient buildings and narrow streets is this area of rock promontories, among them and hardly distinguishable from them is the ruin of this 1000 year old castle, alledged to be the place where Richard the Lionheart was held hostage for a year while he was returning to the crusades. I almost missed it as I was looking for the next wine bar, but my wife spotted it in the setting sun. It was such a natural scene and I was struck by the 1000-year old castle ruins, almost gone to dust, while the millions of year old promontories were still standing tall. There is a bit of darkness that crept into this painting, too. A couple of days before we visited the crumbling monuments of the Nazis in Nuremburg. I was greatly affected by them, and frightened too. I'm sure some of those feelings were still with me when I painted this several weeks later.