Omay on St Regis Pond

I had a new development with my painting this week. I was painting a scene from a recent canoeing trip, during which my friend and I explored the St Regis Canoe Area in the Adirondacks, in New York State. No motorboats are allowed in the area and the wind was low so the paddling was calm and peaceful. When I began to paint I started with quite a flat sky and water, which is how my photos recorded it.

But it didn't feel right. So I sat looking at the painting, trying to recall not what I'd seen during the paddle but what I'd felt that morning. For the camera and the painting, for me, are very different. I use the camera to record truthfully my immediate vision, biased as it is by various preferences, whilst the painting can speak of a wider experience. 

I remembered how excited I was to be in calm water, in such a beautiful place. My heart was happy, my eyes wide. Slight wind on cheek. Low waves, high emotion. The sky did not seem to be a near perfect blue, yet my reaction to the colour was not of primary importance. More importantly was my reaction to the whole experience of being in the world.

I remembered that this is how I always am in nature. Give me a hammock on a beautiful beach and I will not be able to relax in it for long. I'll be in the sea, observing crabs, fish or birds, wondering if I can climb the tree, marveling at every natural thing that I come across, following mental connections that various sights or smells spark off. And come sunset, well, those who have travelled with me will attest to how restless I can seem at this time. Whilst many sit beside a campfire, sipping tea and enjoying the evening light show from their seat, I am forever walking around, experiencing the sunset through frames of trees or reflections, curious about every aspect of the moment, and often trying to interact with it by taking tens of photos. 

A year ago I might have said to myself, you should meditate, calm down, this high emotional state is not advanced. But at this time I see some value in letting this intense inner curiosity free in paint. Maybe in time I will question the point of painting or creativity and come to a place of sitting quietly in nature. This time is not come yet, though. 

I took up the painting, that some could say was finished, and thought, how do I convey my marvel of the world in paint? I suppose this is what we mean when we say an artist is developing a style. I recalled the sky, starting white-ish at horizon and moving into pale blue, and asked, was my experience of it white-ish? Not really. The white-ish stirred something in me, so if I'm to paint my experience of it, then I have to add the white-ish reality to my emotion when viewing it and work out what that looks like on the canvas. A fascinating process. 

If I put a brush stroke on and my inside agreed with it I let it stay, if it felt wrong I rubbed it off. It didn't take many brushstrokes to interpret the feeling of that morning, and a rhythm was quickly gained. The finished worked is quite different to the photos I took at the time yet like them it does record something vital of the experience. A major difference, maybe, is that the painting can stand alone whilst the photos need something more to convey my experience, at least to my eyes. 

It's possible that I'm just fooling myself and getting caught up with a new sort of creativity and a new reason to pick the bones out of life, which I admit I do enjoy doing. Regardless, I did find this way of painting satisfying. For now, I think I've gone some way to record my experience of the paddle on St Regis Pond in a way that only painting can achieve. Not better than, say, poetry, but it's own thing, best suited to the materials. I've got several more paintings lined up from my time in the Adirondacks so I'm going to continue this experiment of spending as much time thinking about how I felt at the time before I put brush to paint, as I do painting. 

I'm also thinking that this method of working is very different than actually painting on the spot. Plein air, as they call it. Because with plein air I'm constantly interacting with the physical aspect of the environment (getting water splashed on the canvas, picking bugs from the paint, swooshing them away from my head, dealing with heat, thirst, hunger, etc) and the primary feelings of being there, whereas with this method I've used in this painting, I'm recalling memories that have been distilled, in a neutral environment. Maybe not of great interest to a viewer, but to me painting, it's important to note this so that when the paintings appear slightly different in style, I can understand that this is part of my overall style, rather than me somehow deviating from it. 

Thanks for reading. Comments, as always, welcome.