Thumbnail watercolor sketch

(C) 2016 Dale DiMauro

The coast of Maine begins to offer its attractiveness at this time of year. Just looking at a photograph of the ocean makes the smell of the salty air come to life. The Maine shoreline always seems to have a mass of dark green evergreens for quite a stretch.

I have had a lot of interruptions lately and needed to just paint a simple scene, quickly. At the end, I added the figure because the bottom of the paper was lacking substance. I do like the contrast of warm colors against cool colors. In addition, the areas where you can see the white of the paper add some quality to the picture, but I am not sure what, in this case. Often the white of the paper can convey reflections or texture, if nothing else.

Recently, I have been painting looser pictures done with freer brush strokes. I have been experimenting with different approaches and the nature of the subject matter has a lot to do with this. This winter, I painted more landscapes, I believe, than buildings and the focus of the pictures has been more informal in appearance.