HAWAII, Black Sand Beach

We have come to a black sand beach merely because the sand here is black. The sand is black. Not just dark, but particles of what was black rock. It’s just like any other beach in Hawaii except for this quirk which seems somehow wrong. Is it my imagination, or is the sand more gritty, like walking on a bed of nails? Anyway, I have a grass mat to sit on and spread out my paints.
A little girl comes over and asks what I am painting. I point out the water, the sky, and the promontory in front of me. She looks, carefully, comments on the colors. I begin talking with her as I mix. "What color should I make the sand?" "Black," she says, quite reasonably. "Ah, but what kind of black? It looks orangey in the sun, and blue-ish in the shade, see?" I mix the colors, and ask how she likes it. "I think it needs more red." And she is right.
She chatters and helps the whole time I am painting. She lives in Hawaii. She has never been off the island in a plane or a boat. It’s good to live in Hawaii. She lives with her mother, and her dad lives next door. She goes to a charter school. Every week her class goes on a field trip. Next week they are going to some fabric place to get fabric so they can make bags. She is petite and bright-eyed, and her lashes curl tight against her eyelids. I am enchanted.
Her brother joins us. He is smaller and has reddish hair. He watches, wide-eyed, as she keeps up her chatter. Two more kids join us. I have become a travelling circus. I put away my painting, and sketch on demand, a fish, a star, some rainbows. As I give them away, I explain about how to hold them to not get paint on them, wishing for watercolors. The kids dance away with the paintings. I have been given a gift.

MAUI, view of nearby Island

We snorkel early today, while the water is calm and the beaches aren’t crowded. See a lovely large octopus, trying to hide behind a coral flake that he is much too big for. I’m surprised he doesn’t squeeze himself out of sight, because they seem able to compress themselves infinitely small.
After lunch, we brows art galleries in Lahaina. It’s wonderful to see all the strong painting styles, and different approaches to handling paint. My favorite gallery is full of local artists’ work, very fine landscape painters and a few botanicals. I am really curious how much Hawaiiana people buy and take home with them. Memories of the wonderful vacation? A lovely place to retire to? There arevalso paintings of Venice. In fact, that is the number two location. Go figure.
We stop at a beach on the way back, and I paint a view of the next island over. (Will have to look at a map to see what it is.) I’m always amazed at how many of the islands you can see from one another, as if they were just down the street. I have trouble capturing the exact color of the hills. Again, I indulge my endless fascination with the colors of the water and the light.

MAUI with Palms

Our last dive day, because we fly on Thursday. We went to Ulua Beach, and I though it was so lovely, I am back for my afternoon painting. I sit in the pokey, flat-bladed Hawaiian grass under a tree that gives a kind of sketchy shade, and paint the colors of water and clouds, which are completely different from yesterday’s. Of the bushes in front of me, I choose a few to put in the foreground, along with a couple of palm trees I can’t resist. It’s almost too bad, because now you don’t quite notice all the colors I put in the clouds.
Today I am the bird lady, or at least the birds think so. They come right up to my feet and peep or squawk at me, depending on their respective voices. I get a close look at a dove, and a brown quail-shaped bird with a v-necklace. And a little brown job. I know the bird guy told me what these are, but I just don’t remember. It’s all I can do to remember the fish, who are my old friends from previous dive trips.
So maybe I’ll go back in the water, where I belong. I spend an hour snorkeling, and return to the hotel, and my family wants to go shopping! I mean, really!

MAUI Clouds

The weather has changed and a stiff gusty wind is beating the park. I paint from our balcony (lanai?) Hoping it will give me a little shelter.
Today’s painting is an experiment. I have a piece of 18 by 24 canvas that I primed, let it dry, took off its support, and rolled for packing in my suitcase. My idea was that I would clip it to cardboard after we’d been to Costco. Well, Costco only had small boxes and it takes two to make my 18 by 24 board. Which leaves me with a ridge in the middle. I can see immediately that I am going to get blips in my paint from the ridge. So I discard the board and lay the canvas directly on the glass table. Once I get that far, I enjoy painting, standing over the table the way you do with watercolor. I have posted a very poor photo of this painting, which shows the wrinkles in the canvas. I have faith that they will disappear when I restretch it.

The clouds over West Maui are my subject. I can’t believe all the colors in them. Even the colors of the ocean are so varied, I never get tired of adding new notes. As the sun sinks, the clouds warm up. When I finish the cloud painting, I have time for a small sunset sketch.

MAUI Afternoon

After a walk on the beach and snorkeling (snorkeling always comes first), I head to the park with my paints.
It is a humid, hazy day. The most striking feature is the clouds, huge puffs of pink and powder blue. I set up a composition with a couple of trees, the blue, blue ocean, and a hint of West Maui under the clouds. By the time I get to painting the clouds, the sun has lit the cloud tops with gold.

I take a break and walk around. A guy has a towel spread out in front of him and has sprinkled bird seed on the towel. He is surrounded by birds. I ask what they are and he tells me... not one name but about ten. He knows the birds. It occurs to me that we all do that... learn a lot about one little bit of the world. Not often that anyone even asks about our little bit of knowledge, and it’s fun to share it when we get a chance.

MAUI Sunset

Had a pleasantly uneventful trip to Maui, leaving not too early in the morning, and arriving early enough to settle into our room and snorkel a bit before sunset.

Kamaole Sands Park is just across the street. I carried my paints over to the lawn and set up while the sun was (I thought) still two hours above the horizon.

The sun sets faster here. There wasn’t as much painting time as I thought I’d have, and the colors changed quickly. I’d lay in some oranges and pinks. Then the sun would slip behind a cloud, and the light would disappear from the water. This happened several times, so that the colors I saw in one part of the sky were gone when I painted another part. Rather than chase the light, I just painted areas one at a time, creating a sequential record of the sun going down.

WILLAMETTE RIVER

I park at the end of the street and drag my rolling paint box down the hill to the Willamette River. The tide is out. I head across the gravel bar toward a small blackberry island. Midway across the channel, the wind picks up, but back on shore the view that I want is blocked. So I set up as close to the berries as I can, trying to get a little shelter from the wind.
I struggle with my equipment. I have chosen to paint an 18 by 24, the largest piece I’ve ever done on location, but quite a bit of canvas for today’s wind. The easel is plenty stable with its legs spread to their widest, but the bottom canvas holder isn’t doing its job. I have to keep pushing the bottom of my canvas back in, and I worry that it will sail away.
The afternoon is enchanted. In September, the sun sinks behind the line of trees to my left, sending slanting shadows across the riverbank, backlighting the maples. A hint of clouds lights the horizon, promising an interesting sunset. "Paint first what will change the fastest," I have been taught. It is all changing ridiculously fast. I block in the shore first, hoping to set the patterns of slanting light. Orange light in the distant shore, golden sunlit trees.
A heavy splash in the river ahead: an osprey has caught a fish. It climbs to my right, over the trees and away from the sun. Two teen-aged boys arrive on bicycles, watch for a while, then take off after blackberries.
The sky fills with color. The clouds that I could barely see are now declaring themselves in yellow and orange. I block in the sky and settle into a rhythm, finding colors, adding them in wet into wet.
I am putting finishing touches on the painting when I look toward the path I came down. Oops. The tide came in while I wasn’t paying attention. There’s no rolling my box back across, and the water is deepening fast. I whip out my cell phone for help, then frantically pack my stuff. When Rick arrives, we carry my box across the inlet of knee-deep water. Ah, the sacrifices we make for art!