30 paintings in 30 days: day 5

Happy Friday! Here's Day 5:

The topic of seagulls came up a few times while we were sailing this week. Two of my friends absolutely despise seagulls (though one friend was swimming when we threw a handful of chips on her and attracted every bird in sight, so that's understandable.) My friend's mom loves the ones that sound like they're laughing. Mike is patiently amused by them as long as they don't poop on his boat. And I like them and prefer them around, as their skylit silhouettes and shrill chatter are as necessary a part of the coastal experience as crashing waves and sandy feet. I like how they look like little sails in the sky and how sometimes you'll just see one bobbing around in the middle of the water, far from land, doing nothing at all except just seagulling.

What do you think? Do you like your beach with a side of seagulls?

30 paintings in 30 days: day 4

Day 4 was inspired by how lovely the sky was when we were anchored on Prudence Island on Monday night. It was warm enough to sit outside on deck until around midnight, and the sky was so clear and so dark that we saw dozens of satellites drifting across the sky and even a handful of shooting stars. 

I have a lot of catching up to do on my "30 paintings in 30 days" goal... maybe I shouldn't have started something so ambitious during the summer, when I'm off on warm weather adventures for half of every week? But after this week's sailing trip and an afternoon nose deep in a book of poetry I'm feeling very refreshed and full of ideas and energy and am anxious to get it all down on paper. These little paintings have been really helpful in fleshing out random inklings of ideas that otherwise may have stayed stashes away in my sketchbook for lack of cohesiveness.