St. Sebastian River . . . by Brush

The Saint Sebastian River, also called Sebastian Creek, is a beautiful three-pronged, mostly unspoiled, river which is a tributary of the Indian River Lagoon, west and north of the City of Sebastian, my home town.

Me and my husband Bob moved from Clinton Connecticut, and picked Sebastian after traveling around the east and west coast of Florida and realizing that this was probably the best little town on the Florida coastline.  Still believe it after 11 years.  As an artist I found no problem switching from painting fall leaves, rivers, snow and rocky beaches to painting palm trees, sandhill cranes, tropical rivers, sandy beaches and gators.  It's all good.  And now I can paint outdoors all year long, with bug spray and sunscreen.  But ah, the Saint Sebastian River, now that's a beauty I am happy to paint.  The trick to painting such a beautiful place is to stand on its banks and study it.  I have also kayaked its meandering waterways and taken many photographs of it in all kinds of light.  It is a jewel of a river, although continuously being environmentally challenged.

As an artist I soak in the beauty of all I see, be it a flower, the sky, a piece of fruit, an interesting face, and anything that involves water.  The canal in back of my home is a constant source of enjoyment and action, providing us a view of sparkling water, birds fishing, gators and turtles cutting a path in the waterway or lying on its banks, and watching as others enjoy paddling by our windows.  But the St. Sebastian River is one of my sources of what the old Florida tropics must have looked like before humans created land masses by carving culverts in the swamp and diverting all that water into canals which eventually empty into larger bodies of water or the ocean.

And so I have been commissioned to try to capture the essence of this ecosystem onto a large canvas.  An honor and a challenge it is, and herein I will document some of the progress of this creative endeavor.  Unfortunately, I decided to create this blog after I had already covered the canvas with preliminary compositions, but I think those who love Florida's environment and my artist colleagues may enjoy seeing the remainder of the progress.

At this point, the canvas is completely covered in acrylic paint, the sky having been tweaked and lightened several times.  Much of this painting is a creation of mine, using referenced photographs which I and others have taken of the Saint Sebastian River.

St. Sebastian River Painting in progreess

Below are pictures of my setup.  It is very important to have everything you need, have good lighting, and be as comfortable as possible in order to sustain your inspiration and stamina.  It helps being close to the refrigerator too!

My rolling painting stationt, very handy.

My painting supplies. Note the paint chart--which I encourage my students to create for themselves.

Below is the left side of this painting.  I am in the process of removing a palm tree which I plan to redesign to accommodate other ideas, including a row of turtles on a log on the far bank.  This oak will also be further tweaked.  The water is just roughed in and will be refined.  A close-up of the owl is shown below.

Barred Owl

Left bank with reference photos. Note removal of the palm tree. Changed my mind.

NOW YOU SEE IT ...

Left side with oak tree

NOW YOU DON'T!!

The above section has the palm tree completely deleted, and the grassy area has been lightened.  A dead branch has been added in preparation for a perched egret, at the customer's request.  Background colors have been blocked in, with more bush treaking to come.

Positioning egret on painting

Not being sure where to put an egret on the painting, and exactly what size it should be, I decided to paint one on canvas, cut it out and find just the right spot.  I have done this before in order to choose the best position for an element of a painting.  Although the spot I chose is not fully painted in, I will adjust my ideas for this area to include dark background elements in order to best contrast this white egret.  Below is the final egret painted directly on the canvas.  After placing the bird on the canvas, I drew around its template with vine charcoal so as not to have to draw it all over again.  The vine charcoal wipes off easily with a rag after the paint dries.

Permanent placement of egret in painting.

Added two slash pines behind palms. 

Slash pines are beautiful trees.  Sparse needle-leaves reveal interesting winding branch formations, with trunks of colorful plaque-like plates girdling the tree.  Fun to paint.  Beanie Backus (of A.E. Backus Gallery fame) was the best at painting these.  I would love to paint every needle and plaque with colorful contrasts, but this is a mural-type 5'x12' painting and no time to paint such detail.

Added a palm to foreground to right of oak tree.

What to do with the water.  Every reflection in the water depends on what's in the sky and what I do on the far bank of the river, and also how much of the foreground bank I choose to cover up with shrubs and trees.  Water is complicated: how deep is it, does ground show through?  Are there plants underneath? what is in the sky - clouds (white, dark or bounced with color), sunset, looming storm? Is the wind blowing, which totally changes the reflections from what's on the far bank to what's in the sky; if there is no wind than there will be a mirror reflection of the far bank, in which case the water will be almost invisible.  Is there something in the water that will make ringlets of reflections?   Water is very difficult to make up, one must have reference photos of each situation in the water.  And then still make up everything that happens to make water "beautiful" and "believable."  I will probably paint parts of this water several times before it will be both.

This painting has so many decisions to be made.  This is where an artist earns his pay: composition.  Any good artist can copy someone else's composition, colors, brushstrokes, etc., but the real test comes when you have to create the composition yourself.  If it were a perfect photograph, then half of the problems are solved.  The other half would be the painting, of which mega decisions still have to be made in order for it to be more beautiful than the photograph.  If this were just something that I could copy 100% off of someone else's painting it would have been finished by now.  So much to think about, problems to solve, perspective-contrast-light-color-animals, etc.  It is a phenomenal mental challenge which helps to keep you sharp--in a fun way.  Those who retire and then decide to learn how to paint will find their senses sharpen and their enjoyment of the world around them heightened.  Oh, and they will meet other people who are also discovering the same things happening to them in their later life.  What a gift, to find another way of "seeing, sensing and enjoying" at a time in life when these senses seem to be diminishing.

Well, that's all for now.  I will post more when time.

Judy Burgarella,
Blogger