Atlantic Surf
36 x 36 Oil on Linen
Picasso
is alleged to have said "bad artists borrow, good artists steal." If
that is true then I'm a good artist. Elizabeth and I once took a two week trip
to Mount Desert Island in Maine, the home of Acadia National Park. It is a
beautiful island with breathtaking views from Cadillac
Mountain and a stunning rocky coastline. We spent the entire first
week lying on the rocks listening to the waves crash, breathing in the ocean air
and reading. Recreational multitasking you might say. The second week we got
out our paint boxes and set to work. There was one afternoon that was
particularly dramatic. It was a partly cloudy day; when the clouds parted there
was a roaring surf, when they gathered again the sound of the waves was muffled.
We were both excited. I clambered down the rocks to get close to the sea, Elizabeth liked the view from where she was and stayed up top. We
both painted well but there was something very compelling about the way she had
used the rocks to frame the sea. I loved that study and over the next few years
thought about creating a large painting using her composition. One day I asked
if I could borrow her study to do the big painting. "Borrow it?" she
said laughingly “You mean steal it”.....
2 comments:
Nice that you didn't have to go far to do your "stealing"...
At first I thought you meant you were "stealing" from Winslow Homer!
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