Fish Rock (oil on canvas 5 x 7 in.)

-
10 September in the morning finds me sitting atop "Fish Rock" in Rockport, Ontario, on the St Lawrence River, looking down on the low,  eastward extension of the rock as waves slosh and comb its fringe of bright green algae. I am participating in the annual "paintout" of the International Plein Air Painters. There are about twenty of us, painting boats, buildings, islands, docks... and in my case, rocks.

The narrow street through the eastern part of town is backed upon its river side first by marinas and then by white frame houses that present blank rear walls, back doors and garages to the street... but most of these unprepossessing dwellings on the river side of the street have elegant fronts on their gardens and yards overlooking a sparkling expanse of blue water, graced by islands, busy with boats, and framed by the distant sunlit southern shore.

Fish Rock is a traditional swimming spot. I am told that everyone who grew up in Rockport swam there. Fish Rock itself is a great round granite boulder encrusted with lichen, a high diving spot for the bold. You can see eastward edge of it at the bottom of my painting. The rock that I am looking down on is lower, smoothed by sandy storm waves, preferred by folks who want to launch into the waves from a lower level. 
A White Oak tree and a White Pine shade the ground cover that borders the lawn where I walk back along the path behind the boat house. A ground cover of bindweed that sprawls over a few Sumacs and crowds out the Virginia Creeper. A bank of Jewelweed is half blossomed and half fruited. The Bumblebees are still nosing into the pendulous orange flowers, and I gently pinch the fattest of the dangling torpedo shaped fruits to set off a satisfying explosion as pale seeds go flying and a long translucent green strap snaps itself into a baby fist faster than I can see how it's done.


This painting is for sale.
To view price, please select dimensions, which you will find with the title at top of page:


Comments

  1. Phil ChadwickSeptember 16, 2011 at 8:51 AM

    Terrific! Aleta captured the feeling behind the rock and the waves!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

What do you think of this painting, and what do you know about the subject that I have painted?

Popular posts from this blog

Sturgeon Chute, Upper Rapids (oil on canvas, 12 x 16 in.) Sold

-
Image
1 October finds me painting at the upstream rapids of Sturgeon Chute on the Wanapite River, 6.7 kilometres northwest of Hartley Bay. To get just the right angle on the rapids, screened by flaming leaves of an overhanging Red Maple, I'm standing on a narrow grassy ledge, the small of my back leaning against a cold wall of smooth granite, with the feet of my easel only a few centimetres from the edge. About two metres below, courses the fast deep water,
Read more

Outfall at Nuclear Beach

-
Image
Outfall at Nuclear Beach (oil on birch panel 11x14 in.) 24 January 2024 finds me starting a plein air painting on the icy shore of Lake Ontario, near Pulaski, New York, looking east across Mexico Bay toward the cooling stack of the Nine Mile Point nuclear power station.  I have set myself up to paint on a low ice shelf close to the water, near a bank of amazing ice cobbles tumbled smooth in the waves of a recent storm. At my feet a creek is running free from beneath its silent sheets of ice, along a high barrier of storm-piled frozen wave-spray mixed with ice cobbles. The gentle swells moving in from Lake Ontario splash against ice covered boulders where it finally meets the lake. After I took my initial reference photos, cousin Delos who had guided me here to his favourite spot for photographing sunsets, departed to prepare supper.  By the time I had decided on a painting spot and arranged my plein air studio, the dark clouds on the horizon had lightened, spreading across Me...
Read more

Little Marsh in Limerick

-
Image
"Little Marsh in Limerick" (Oil on birch panel, 6 x 6 in.) 26 December 2023 finds me capturing sunset colours through a tear in the clouds over a small Cattail marsh on Forsythe Rd, 2.3 km E of McRoberts Corner, in Limerick Forest, Grenville County, Ontario. It is 7C after rain, and the road is muddy. We’ve had a rainy Christmas with temperatures well above seasonal average. Cheryl is in the driver’s seat, watching me paint my annual birthday plein air in oils on a   6 x 6 inch cradled birch panel, trying to get it covered with paint before we lose the light and go home for supper.   This little marsh, only a few minutes from home, is a familiar scene. There are observations in Fred’s database over the course of 40 years from this spot, of Muskrat, Beaver, Snapping Turtle, Painted Turtle,  Green Frog, Great Blue Heron, and Red Squirrel. This is a few hundred metres from “Site F” where we listen each spring to monitor Wood Frogs, Gray Tree Frogs, and Spring Peepers....
Read more