Incoming Storm Sebego Lake, Maine

Incoming Storm - Sebego Lake

Acrylic 18"x 24"

This acrylic was painted on location at Harmon's Beach Sebego Lake, Maine many falls ago.  I can remember the day like it was yesterday.  I used a heavy french easel which I had to prop against a tree to keep it from being knocked over by the strong wind gusts.

It was so cold, that when I finished painting, I couldn't drop the paint brush, I needed to remove it from my right hand with my left.

I was focused on the water and sky, amazed at all the colors that we often think of a simply a grey day.  Like any painting I look at later, there are some things that I would do differently now, but i was and still am pleased with the effort.  I captured things that I could never have imagined because it was painted start to finish on location (en plein air).

When I look at this today, I am transported back to that moment in time.  I can hear the crashing windblown surf, and feel and hear the howl of the wind and the spray from the waves.

If you've never tried painting on location, I'd encourage you to do so.  Don't let people talk you out of it talking about all the challenges - its worth it.  I've found that even though some of the effects I'm trying to capture in nature are still beyond me, the mind takes in far more than you are aware of at the time.

For me, sometimes, things go exactly as I hope, or I have happy accidents, and I have a picture ready to frame.  At other times, I use the piece as a reference for a studio work, or I use bits and pieces of what I've painted in other painting compositions.  Others simply are stacked up in the studio. the result of many lessons learned - unlikely to ever see the light of day (or the internet).  Still it is time well spent, in my opinion.