Celebrating the beauty of darker, shorter days
A few recent paintings that capture the deeper blue colour palette of winter light on Nova Scotia’s coastal shores
Dusk falling at Cherry Hill. Gouache on tan coloured paper, 5x7 inches.
The mornings are dark and quiet as I feed the cats and put the coffee on. I watch as daylight slowly emerges while writing in my journal next to a crackling fire. First, I can see – just faintly – the tall slender silhouettes of poplars against a deep midnight blue sky. Then, gradually, the gardens and woodlands begin to take shape in the muted light of dawn.
The day officially begins with the cheerful calls of the chickadees and blue jays as they stop by the feeders. Now, everyone is up and fed, and it’s time to work on a painting in the studio.
Here are a few recent paintings that capture this deeper blue colour palette of these darker, shorter days of the year.
This painting is of dusk falling at Cherry Hill.
Right next to the sweeping stretch of the Atlantic Ocean, there is a large marsh. When you stand on the rocky beach and look over the marshland, you see this small house amongst the expanse of rippling grasses. I loved the contrast of the vast landscape and the relative smallness of the human presence.
The painting, below, shows the old fishing huts at the beach nearest my home as darkness falls and lights turn on for the night. The air was quiet and clear, the water making only the smallest sound as it lapped against the shore. It has that slightly obscured haziness of nightfall when details begin to become lost in the shadows.
Nightfall in the Cove. Gouache on watercolour paper, 7x10 inches.
I loooove rich mood and muted quality of these early and late hours of the day. I just want to climb inside these paintings and live there! Is it just me, or do you feel that, too?
Still, all this darkness can get just a touch gloomy ... so I thought I’d put together a mini-collection of six of my coastal sky paintings as a curated set of prints. They look SO beautiful hung all together in a grid. Here is a sneak peek (featuring the blues that remind me of the darker, shorter days of winter, of course).
A trio of sky paintings from the upcoming mini-collection of curated prints featuring coastal skies. Original paintings were gouache on watercolour paper, approximately 3x3 inches.
Artist’s Note: The coastal skies collection is now available in the shop as an elegantly curated set of THREE or SIX fine art prints.
Luminous & Joyful, the Anticipation collection captures the soft colours and swooping forms of expansive coastal skies. It is a celebration of the return of the light after many dark winter months – and of the beautiful coastal landscape that I call home. Creating them felt like a dance of gentle colour and movement.
