Digging out old stuff.....

Grand Marias has a natural harbor with two light houses it. The oil pastel painting is one that I did many years ago. Probably 20 years or more.  It reality, it is an unfinished painting by me.  The thing that bothers me is the cropping of it after the photograph real does make it have a more finished quality. We would work along the shoreline for a week and then have to head back to Iowa.  I have a lot of work the just never got the refined finish that I would do if I could. Summer vacation never lasted long enough and the work that wasn’t finished is still in portfolios as if they were vacation photos of the week.

Pastel or watercolor is better for plain air work for me.  I like to capture all the light that is projected because of the sun and Lake Superior. It can almost be too bright for painting as the colors look different than with strong light. I like seeing the pastel washed out colors of what was really seen along the shore line.

This paintings looks good enough to frame. I know that it was done in oil pastel. a stick of oil color that reminds me of a grease pencil. The area is near Split Rock light house where there is a park ground area adjacent to the shoreline of Lake Superior.

As I continue to explore paintings of my past, I am thinking it will inspire to get back to painting new works now.  I am retired from teaching now but still have lots of odds and ends to do because we recently moved to a newer home.