Look what emerged from the sea!
I have been painting for years for my own personal pleasure and an occasional commission piece here and there. But it wasn't until my brother invited my son and I to join his family at Stone Harbor for a week did the possibility of an Etsy shop exist. I had taken all of my painting stuff to work at the house. Then I thought, well, why not join everyone at the beach? So I did! And WOW! I came alive as an artist! The sounds of the gulls, the surf rippling and sometimes waves crashing, watching the sanderlings run up and down the beach trying to outrun the waves, the gorgeous umbrellas popping up like overnight mushrooms all along the beach. It was an immersion of the senses that enveloped me like a loving womb.
All that week I painted and painted and came out with about 10 pieces. I was shocked. My niece had the idea the idea that I ought to have an Etsy shop. She was about the third person who had said that so I decided now was the time. It started off with my just doing small wood blocks, then grew to paintings, and then to prints. Like a wave, it just kept growing and growing. Then it crashed and my work became an all new wave. I keep riding the waves of artistic creativity and letting what wants to come...come.
Summer can be all year long with the right paintings on the wall. Perhaps one of the places holds a special memory for you, too, like it has for me. Many of my paintings were done plein air. I can't wait for the spring and summer to get outside and create a whole new batch of outdoor scenes. In the meantime, it's working from photos I took while at the shore... birds, buildings, the different colors of water with every new beach I see....ahhhh, so many wonderful memories. I can almost smell the sea air!
I have lived on the Connecticut coast my whole life and have been very fortunate to be so near the shore for glorious inspiration. It is truly my sacred space.
