My Own Backyard

It is really quite amazing to me. I go out with my sketching club to the city all the time to seek out new and different places to paint or draw. Yesterday, as I started out for my walk around the Sooke Basin, how beautiful the place I live in really is. It was getting close to sunset, and the light was just perfect. I noted a sunk fishing boat, by some pilings probably no more than 40 feet off shore. The boat had been sunk out there for I can't remember how long. Yesterday was different. The marine works next store had move their crane barge out along side the boat. I realized that the scene was going to be gone before today was out. So, after my walk, I went inside and got my camera, and returned to the shoreline (about 40 steps from my front door) and snapped an number of photos of the barge and the sunken ship.

How many times had I said to myself, what a picturesque scene that would be to paint. I really must get out and paint it. Now, all that I have is a photo of the real thing to paint. And so it goes. The marine works is right across the parking lot from my condo. I can see the giant shed where they pull the boats out of the water to work on them. I can see the area where the boats are docked. It is a very old and run down marina. It has more charm and character than any other marina I have visited to paint and draw.

I think I finally have gotten it. Last night I finally realized that some of the best marine landscapes where right outside my door. And with the weather getting a little warmer, I am going to make a promise to myself to do some alla prima painting in the next couple of weeks and become intimate with that quaint marina right next door, before it too is swept away in the modern rush to build condos, and boardwalks along the water.

The painting I have posted with this entry is one I did of Sooke Basin. It was early in the morning in the winter, and the moon was still visible high in the sky while the sun was starting to light the sky. The lone sailboat anchored out in the basin added just the touch I wanted for the painting. An interesting story about the painting's sailboat. I met the owner's father on the beach during one of my walks. I told him how I liked looking at the sailboat. The man then told me that his son had to bring the sailboat in and couldn't moor it any more, because the sea lions were climbing in to sunbath, and they were heavy enough that they almost sunk the boat! Growing up in New York City, that was a hazard I never considered before.