October Summer Sky

Nauset Beach Cape Cod

Yes, the photo was taken purposefully on an angle–there are so many parallel shots taken, don’t you agree? A little tilt instantly changes your perspective .

A skyline full of these purples and blues hardly reminds one of the warm, sundrenched days of summer at the beach. But these colors captured on an October day are what make living near a seacoast so exciting.

That every day is a new combination of water, light, sea, reflections, colors, patterns, moisture in the atmosphere, sand textures, figures on the beach is a goldmine of possibilities. A single shift in any one of these can dramatically affect what you’ll see at any time during a day. So you can imagine how tough it might be for artists to sort through the range of choices when determining just what will inspire a new work.

This photo could inspire a study of cloud formations, or a composition that uses an angled horizon line as suggested in the photo, or a moody solitary figure standing or walking along the shoreline–add a suggestion of footprints in the sand and a story begins…

The lavender blue sky color, which I might mix ultramarine blue, alizarin and white to recreate, would be my choice as the basis for a very dramatic angled horizon oil painting–incorporating the solitary figure for scale.

This might just get to the top of my inspiration list.