Driving the Coast

Driving the Coast

Story

This landscape feels to me like it has elements of my home state, Arkansas, but also Maine and Alaska.

I live in Arkansas and I drive the highways all the time. Have you ever noticed how, when you snap a photo from a moving car, the foreground looks blurry but the distant scenery still looks good? I tried to emulate that in this painting. I used a 5-inch wide brush to swipe the foreground land and bushes to blur them out.

The ocean in the distance is inspired by our trip to Maine to visit friends. I wanted to get in the water, but it was too cold and the beach was too rocky anyway. (Can you even call it a beach if there isn’t sand?) But, ohh was it gorgeous there!

Maine seemed to have a lot of dark cloudy days. Or perhaps that is just the way it was the day we visited the ocean.

The mountains on the right side of the painting are inspired by another trip we took to Alaska to visit some other friends. We saw such beautiful snowy mountains! My wife and I looooove mountains! We also saw a bear with her cub and some moose!

The more prominent mountain, there on the other side of the lake, has purple snow because, well it is my painting, so I can have purple snow if I want to.

Process

I use M. Graham Artists’ oil paint because they are made with walnut oil instead of linseed oil. I’m intolerant or allergic to linseed oil. I prefer oil to acrylic because it doesn’t dry too fast. That way I can leave it and come back tomorrow and still manipulate it like no time has passed at all.

The medium is hardboard, which is a masonite type of material. Masonite is actually a brand name that has become the name for the thing like Kleenex is now the name everyone calls tissue. I like a board instead of canvas because I don’t like the way canvas gives under the brush. I like to be able to more easily scrape away paint to reveal the white underneath. And I don’t like the texture of the canvas to show through.

Besides brushes, I also use paper towels, scrapers, and other tools for added effects that would be difficult to get with just a brush.