Variations on a Theme

How does one envision an image? How does one interpret that vision?

I love the coastline and spent many summers on the beaches of Long Island, NY where I grew up. Not only summers but every season really and in all types of weather. Actually, Long Island is like one giant sandbar, as my Dad used to joke!

I'm not sure if it was the wide open spaces of the beaches or the vast skies or that thin scrim of a horizon line between ocean and sky that I loved the most. Or perhaps the dunes and the waves. In the midst of February, all these images and smells and sounds fill my head.  These two works seem to evoke some aspect of those memories, yet in very different ways and methods --

Coastal Haze

This is a fairly small work done on Wallis pumiced paper with acrylics and touches of pastel, done quickly with large mop brushes.

And this one was painted with oils on a thick heavy 200lbs. acrylic paper by Strathmore, which sold a few months ago at the Hartford Open Studio weekend.

Wetlands, Orleans MA

Different mediums, different approaches -- and yet both seem to capture a sense of the coast and surrounding wetlands. And I suppose that's the best one can hope for --

In summer, the song sings itself.

~William Carlos Williams