Summer Winds

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C1599

"A Light in the Storm"

(Oregon Coast)

Oil on Centurian Oil Primed Linen Panel

with additional Coat of Williamsburg Lead Ground

5" x 7"

Click here to make this your Own

Weather-wise I could have well stayed up in the Coast Range, as when I finally arrived in Bandon, six days after my intention to be there, I could see the usual Summer winds were up.  If you were following these postings from their inception last Summer, you might remember that on this central & southern Oregon Coast the winds in Summer are usually strong, from the north (and therefore cold), and fairly incessant.  Thus they were upon my arrival late in the day after I had left my charming forest road campsite high in the Oregon Coast Range, and toddled into Bandon.  The next day, however, they had dissipated, but a dull overcast had set in.  This would normally not have prevented my painting on the shore, but once down on the beach, and while looking for a spot to paint, I noticed that the sands had shifted from what they had been last Summer … deeper and therefore the low tide was further out past sea-stacks that I had never been able to walk around on past visits to Bandon.  Considering the bland lighting of the overcast, and this new configuration of the sands, I decided to concentrate taking photographs and making pencil sketches in my pocket sketchbook.  The Oil Painting above was done from one of my drawings in that sketchbook, and is shown below.

While rapidly jotting down this pencil sketch, I had in mind that I would use it as the basis for a dramatic storm with crashing waves.  This is the type of drawing I consider as informational note taking, as are many of the drawings in this pocket sketchbook.  This is one of those sketchbooks where I had cut and folded the paper into sections and then had a professional bookbinder in Cornwall, England bind it together; I had about twenty of various sizes bound at the same time, eleven years ago.  Not cheap but now I have sketchbooks bound with the various papers (some handmade), that I most enjoy working on.  This is a Fabriano Ingres paper, 160 gsm in weight; I love the way a laid* paper takes the graphite, when drawing.  The day after the drawing was done I worked up the Oil Sketch from my Pencil Sketch, as the cloud cover continued and the wind came up again … the Sun did come out later … still breezy.

Imprimatura: Venetian Red.

Block-in: French Ultramarine.

The Pigments used were:  Rublev Blue Ridge Yellow Ochre, Italian Burnt Sienna, with Winsor & Newton Cobalt & French Ultramarine Blues, Venetian Red, and Cremnitz & Titanium Whites.

* A laid paper is one where you can see the laid lines (the close parallel lines), and the chain lines (parallel lines wider spaced and 90 degrees to the laid lines), indented in the paper, from the screen used during the paper making process.  A wove paper does not have these lines and is what you find as the surface of normal writing or printing paper.