studies from cape cod

plein air painting is hard. plein air painting at the beach with wind, sand and blazing sun, really hard. to demonstrate. here's a little painting i did of the incoming tide. this picture was taken shortly after i finished it, and right after a big gust of wind blew my jar of turps over, spilling directly over it:

it immediately began to crack and attract sand, and i thought it was ruined. but miraculously when the turpentine dried it was ok, and i was able to dust off some of the sand:

even my tiny bathers were ok (i was very proud of my tiny bathers):

here's the second painting i did that day:



that photo was taken just before another big gust came and threw the painting directly into the sand. here it is now, sand and all (everyone kept telling me to leave it for effect):



despite the sand and the wind, painting on the beach was actually heaven. (how could it not be?) i'll post more pictures of us later, but here's one of me at the beach right by our cottage, on a really foggy day, where gaby and i found a good spot to paint, nestled by the rocks to block the wind...



...we were blatently disregarding the safety precautions being on these rocks. apparently cape cod girls tend to dramatically jump off them alot.. or, be whisked away by their sail-like skirts. or something..