SOLD TM8196 Good Morning, Grand Manon 12x12 oil on panel

Good Morning, Grand Manon! So near and yet so out of reach. Grand Manon is across the water from Lubec, Maine and Campobello, New Brunswick. It hovers like a piece of magic, going into and out of fog. From the tip of Campobello, one feels the urge to shout greetings, almost as if wishing a good day to an alter ego.

Part of the appeal of painting these rocky shores is figuring out the complex geometry of granite ledge, with its intrusions and seams, and then the way it erodes into a jigsaw puzzle of little pieces. This is the kind of math I prefer, indigenous geometry.

Technical painting notes: The painting was built up using layers of primarily transparent pigments. The initial layers were brushed on very loosely using Liquin Impasto medium (to save the crisp brushstrokes) and a bristle brush. Planar surfaces were painted using a square-tipped nylon brush and a light touch. Additional layers of bristle brushed transparent color served to “rough up” the surfaces and keep the ledge, especially, from getting too direct. I wanted layers of streaks to show through. This is a rough and tumble landscape – if the painting were too neat it would lose the wild flavor of the place. As the image developed, I used a small nylon “round” brush and dark transparent paint to define the cracks and fractures in the near ledge.