Marshland Magic

“I have an immoderate passion for water.... but especially for marshes, 

teeming with all that mysterious life of the creatures that haunt them. 

A marsh is a whole world within a world, a different world, 

with a life of its own, with its own permanent denizens,

 its passing visitors, its voices, its sounds, its own strange mystery.” 
― Guy de Maupassant, The House of Madame Tellier and Other Stories

I, too, love the marshes.  It's an acquired taste (for often they are home to mosquitos) but the changing shapes, the tides, the life they support...all of this has fascinated me over the years.  Painting a marsh is pure pleasure.

We found this marshland along the shores of a beach in Louisiana...(and yes, it was home to many giant mosquitos who all bit promptly and in masse at 5:35 pm).  In the daylight and with a slight breeze we enjoyed the walk around and thru them towards the ocean shoreline.  I knew then that I would paint it one day.  Above is how I started.

The dune fence was intriguing as it was a direct sightline into the scene.  The challenge would be for it to take you to the tallest grasses but then to have the eye float over the zig zags of land until it reached the fatherest point where the land touches the sky (and the ocean beyond).  Color and texture would have to do some heavy work.

Above is a detail of the farthest point on the horizon line...I messed with that patch of darker grass until my knees gave out and my eyes blurred.  It could not be unrealistically dark but just enough to make your eye head that way.  Notice all of the texture on the canvas.  While people assume marshes are rather still and silent there is a lot happening beneath the surface water...and ripples do appear when the tides change or the winds pick up.

Marshland Magic

20 x 24, oil, framed and available

Finished.  The grasses are really prominent and give a rather harsh feeling to the landscape...although if you have walked close to "saw grass" you will know exactly how it got that name.  I think it might be interesting to try a similar scene with softer, more muted banks, perhaps during sunset when everything appears hazy and more gentle.  It's fascinating how color and texture can change the entire mood of a painting.  

I am hoping our eastern Carolina marshes were not totally devastated during the hurricanes...it is a lot to ask of them to completely filter all of the nasty run off headed their way in such quantities.  The teeming bottom feeders will certainly take a hit and who knows how that will affect the sealife?  Sigh.  Mother Nature gives and she takes.  

Now, back to the studio.

Cindy