Category: beach day

Where to Spend the Heat and Humidity

It’s Wednesday and the temperatures are expected to be in the nineties, hot, humid, sunny. Perfect!

There’s a decision to make now. Should I stay home in the garden, go to the town pool, or visit the beach? Today is the last day of school so the wild munchkins will be at the pool, and some will be at the beach. None of them will be at my house. 
I am thinking of painting, somewhere. So there’s the studio, the garden, or the beach. Definitely not going to the town pool for that. 
It’s early. There’s still plenty of time to decide. 

Fluttering in the garden..

What a Day at The Beach!

Tuesday was a beautiful day. Gorgeous was with the Princess visiting a friend and I was going to go to the beach by myself. I don’t have a problem being alone at the beach. It’s family friendly, peaceful and there’s usually plenty of other lone people doing their own quiet thing.

I brought my travel watercolor set, fully intending to put it to good use. I also brought along a book to read before I felt like painting. I managed to remember to take a few photos before I settled into my inert position in my sand chair.

For a beautiful sunny day, this beach was practically empty. Fine with me. Empty beach almost all to myself is a wonderful thing. The few kids on the beach just had to play football right near me though. Of course I had to tell them to move down the beach and hit other people with their football. Geez!

I had my little lunch, read my book, and ate my peach when I realized I had planned to paint that peach with a few shards of sea shells. Oops! So I just kept reading and enjoying the scenery. I answered a call from my mom and while we’re talking I felt a weird movement as I sat in my chair. I thought it must be the wind pushing me funny. 
My mom said her desk was shaking and she felt dizzy. I told her Wait a minute, I feel the same thing! I noticed other people began to stand up on the beach and look around, and said such to Mom. It was almost 2PM and I decided I am done here. Wait, is this an earthquake?
Texts were flying into my phone from Gorgeous, my sister, Son#2, Mom. Some of my outgoing texts would not go through. I couldn’t access voice mail either. As I was leaving I asked some other women if their phones worked. They didn’t. Well, everyone started talking about what was happening.

New York had a 5.9 earthquake yesterday and I was at the beach when it happened. Now that I think about it, what a jerk I was. I should have ran out of there as soon as I realized what was going on. Did I want to be in the middle of a tsunami resulting from said earthquake? Uh, no thank you. 
What kind of New Yorker am I? I was lulled by the beauty and peace of the beach into thinking I was safe. 
Next time, run you idiot.

Big Yellow Umbrella at the Beach

Today was an amazing beach day at Pt. Lookout, N.Y. At home it seemed as if the weather would not cooperate, cloudy and overcast with a hint of a sprinkle. There was no way I wasn’t going to the beach. No way. I packed myself up and left. Total drive time to the beach was fifteen minutes without traffic. I arrived at just past noon.
Other people must have thought it wouldn’t be a good day, but it turned out beautiful. Like I always say: Heaven is an empty beach. After relaxing in my chair for a while and having lunch, I got out my trusty travel watercolor set and pad and set to work painting the big yellow umbrella right in front of me. 

Big Yellow Umbrella (c)2011 Dora Sislian Themelis
7×11 Watercolor on Canson paper 

Twenty minutes and I was finished with this painting. I don’t know if it’s the paper that dries so quickly or the beach weather. It was a pleasure to sketch with the paint and forgo the pencil for most of this work. I did draw just a little to get some proportions correct, but overall I just went with paint. And it was good.

At Pt. Lookout Beach

I finally made it to the beach this Sunday. Pt. Lookout was beautiful on a warm sunny day. Traffic going there was light, not many people hogging up the sand, the water was warm, as was my company of family. I never got to take a photo of the beach itself because I didn’t want to enjoy the whole day through the camera lens. It was a perfect day in every sense.
But I must be really tired because I just posted this to the wrong blog! I thought my banner looked a little different after I pressed the button that says Publish Post! Yikes! My apologies to the 100 Paintings Challenge if anyone was over there and up popped my beach pics! Hahahaha! My bad.

What a Great Day!

What an amazing day at the beach today! The weather was sunny, hot and humid. Just the way I like it. Can it get any better than this? I don’t think so.

Had my lunch with me, a huge iced coffee and a beach towel. What else do I need? Nothing. A short drive from home and I’m in heaven. I couldn’t ask for a better day.

Look at that scene. It’s a comfortable, lazy, quiet beach. Drink it in. Savor it. You can see the heat rising up off the sand into that beautiful blue sky. Breathe in deep and exhale. Slowly breathe in the ocean air. Let it out. Repeat.

Well, I have to interrupt this to say April Fool! It’s cloudy, cold and raining outside, and north of where I live they’re expecting a big snowstorm.

Enjoy your day!

Thinking of Something Else

Back to business! As you can see I have ditched the apple. I’d had enough of it. I think it was more fun for me when I had the apple in the middle of objects that really didn’t belong together. Then it became a habit. Boring? I’m not sure. That, and the annoying paint colors, was making my painting time feel drab.

Maybe painting time isn’t supposed to be that exciting anyway. Maybe it is. The action of painting, the process, as I’ve said so many times, is the goal. Just to paint. The end result is a by-product of the action.

Yeah, yeah, I know, I get it. Still, I want to be excited by the subject. I keep thinking back to that autumn day at the beach when I scrounged around for objects only to find broken shards of shells to paint. They were really small pieces and then I got the bright idea to put the apple from my lunch next to the shell bits for a color pop. I was so excited with the prospect that I painted quickly and was happy with my work.

Three Shells (c)2011 Dora Sislian Themelis
8×12 Watercolor on Arches paper

Now the apple idea is old, the paints annoying. No more apple. No more leaves. On to shell bits. I think I need the color pop though. And then I think I need to move on. I should look through my swipe files and photos to see if anything appeals to me. Going back to painting from photographs feels like a step backward, for me anyway. Since I’ve been painting from life it’s helped me see things better. Can you switch back and forth like that and have work that feels right? Something to ponder.

I Need a Sunny Day

What do you do when the weather outside is not perfect?  I get Artist A.D.D when it’s rainy.  Yeah, I’ll just call this “Artist” A.D.D. because I don’t want to say how really blah and unfocused I feel in weather that’s not my opinion of good.

Last week I was somewhere and was asked what do you need to feel good?  The thought that immediately popped into my mind was that I need a sunny day.  Is that dumb or what?  No one can change the weather.  You get what you’re going to get in that department.  Sun, rain, snow, it’s out of my hands.  But I can imagine it, right?  So that’s what I try to do.  When things get crazy I try to remember to go to the beach on a hot sunny day, in my mind.  Sometimes it works.

Today is a cloudy, rainy, but warm day.  Not my favorite, but I can live with warm.  I’d rather have hot and humid.  People don’t understand it.  I don’t care, I need it.  I could get myself down for the day if I think about how the winter is creeping up on us, but don’t tell me to move because that’s not happening.  No matter that I live in the New York suburbs on Long Island, I need to be in close proximity of the city of Manhattan. I may not be going there often, but nearby is good enough.  I know it’s weird, don’t ask questions!

Last week was great hot and sunny weather for September.  You bet I took myself to the beach for some R&R.  Yup.  I packed the essentials, (food and iced coffee) and drove out there.  In fifteen minutes I was sitting in my chair in the hot sand with very few people on the beach.  I remembered my watercolor set and found some broken shell pieces for when I was ready to paint.  But first I breathed a nice long sign of relief that I had arrived!  Yes!

I fished around in my bag for my camera so I could take a couple of pictures.  It wasn’t in one pocket, not the other, not in the bottom of the bag.  Well, OK, I’ll get the phone out and shoot a few pics, I thought.  I couldn’t find that either.  So I was without a camera or any device of communication.  Let me tell you that was kind of scary!  What did we do before cell phones?  We were free.  But in the 21st century, being free is not an option.  After a little bit of panic and anxiety I decided I better get it together, paint and go home.

Thank goodness I found those bits of shells otherwise I didn’t have a good subject.  This beach is so long there’s just ocean and sky, no little bay or curve of dune to be interesting.  I hadn’t eaten the apple I brought so I arranged it with the shells in the sand at my feet.  There’s just something magical about painting things in the bright sunlight with the reflection off the sand.  The shadows are sharp and the bright light evens out mid tones so there’s no need to squint.

It’s a good feeling to work with color and form, to be able to forget where and who I am.  Some people have the ability to be out of their body at will, their mind off in another world.  For me, it’s this moment that I’m gone.  Nothing exists but the brush moving against the paper.  I don’t have to speak.  I have no thoughts in my head, no worries, no concerns, nothing but an empty brain.  I might not even be me.  I almost don’t exist.  It’s great.

I sketched out the apple and shell bits in watercolor paint only.  Blending in straight color, making the shapes take form and moving quickly enough to get it done, I finished and was able to lay back in my chair to let it dry.  Breathe in and breathe out, and sigh.  I was there, I painted and I was done.

Broken Shells (c)2010 DST 5×7 Watercolor

A Little Something New

It’s Monday.  A new week begins again.  The awful feeling of reliving the events of September 11, 2001 has passed for another year.  This week should prove to be very different.  It’s the anticipation of a new thing to be with all kinds of excitement.

The new thing is still growing, cooking, working it’s way to us and expected to be revealed soon.  Have you guessed it yet?  Maybe you have.

I am superstitious.  Let’s get that out of the way right now, up front, plain and clear.  I’m not saying anything more about it.  But I will say that the anticipation is killing me now that the time is nearing.  Yes, superstitious I am.  It comes to me from my family.  My grandmother had plenty of them for different things.  Doesn’t everyone have a little something they do for good luck, or to repel bad luck?  Like a Friday the 13th kind of thing?  We have plenty, for sure.

My kids don’t want to hear about the different superstitions that have been passed down.  You want to shrug your shoulders and say, So what?  What’s going to happen?  But go ahead.  Do it and see.  Do you really want to chance it?  I go with that flow.

Some people call it a jinx.  Some call it a canary.  Why even try to explain these things?  If you don’t know maybe it’s better.  The Mr. will say Don’t even tell me!

Now my poor DIL Gorgeous is stuck with me and the superstitions, old wive’s tales, Greek folklore stories and the like.  She’s Greek too, she knows, but every family has some they believe in and others that they don’t.  My bunch just seems to have more.  I read somewhere that some very prominent, intelligent, famous people were superstitious, so that gives me some hope we’re not all nutcakes.  Son #1 rolls his eyes at me, but I think Gorgeous is starting to ‘get it’.  She’s a great sport!

When it’s all over I’ll tell you all about it, but not before.  No need to count those chickens before they hatch now, right?  Of course.  Details will come later.

In the meanwhile, here’s the watercolor I painted on my beach day last week.  I understand that Tuesday is going to be sunny and pleasant.  There’s a good possibility I’ll be visiting the beach again if it is, unless there’s something else that comes up.  In that case, I’ll be somewhere else.

Sandal in the Sand (c)2010 DST Watercolor