An Ocean of Painting
It’s a hot summer.
Maybe that’s why I’m thinking about the beach, the ocean waves, and sea creatures. Even though I’m sitting in my apartment studio I can be transported. That’s the beauty of making and enjoying viewing art.
I’ve been floating among mediums: Watercolor, gouache, and acrylics.
The watercolor wet-on-wet technique is so fun for painting creatures and colorful scenes. The vibrancy and illustrative quality of working with gouache is why I try my hand at creating white caps of waves and beach scenes with its’ layering. I haven’t completed any of the acrylics of ocean coral reefs but I will post on instagram, Facebook, and update you as they are completed and available for purchase.
Everything I create is for sale, so if you see something you like here, just contact me even if it is not listed in my portfolio. I lag behind on all the website and social media technology. Sorry, but summer feels so free for painting, the little girl in me that wants to run barefoot down the sandy beach to the water wins out for painting beaches over staring at a computer screen editing,typing, posting, etc.
Spain and The East Coast of the USA are experiencing heat waves.
Like much of the world we are experiencing hot, humid, ugh-type weather. My mind turns to climate change as I paint ocean scenes. And I’ve begun to tackle my feelings about it with art, too. Here is watercolor and gouache painting I’m almost done with. I need to fix the whites a bit, but I painted a vibrant coral reef and have dripped white paint over it to signify the bleaching of coral reefs taking place in our oceans.
Make it stand out
I’ll post the final of this along with an acrylic coral reef for sale on Instagram, facebook, and my portfolio soon.
So follow me on Instagram
and
It’s been an interesting process painting a picture I like and then “ruining” it with the white over it. I can feel how I want to hold onto its’ preciousness and beauty. I can feel my fear in messing up the piece as I watch it transform into something else.
Above my desk I have a poem that fits my current world view when things seem crazy and unpredictable like the weather right now-people’s violence against each other and the earth.
The poem is like a prayer and helps me go on with my artmaking and life when the world heats up (literally and figuratively). I’m not really a religious person. I’m too much of a skeptic for that. But here is a little prayer I’ve crafted that speaks to the spiritual part of me.
I see the world gradually
Being turned back into wilderness,
And in some way, this humbly comforts me,
So that I accept
Our human ignorance, destruction, violence, and death
As a part
Of an overriding growth
And a mysterious season of change.
Oh, that I may fight the right fight, voice the unvoiced, express what aches for expression
Though my heart is breaking
I will choose each day to see
the joy and beauty that is all life. -Marti Lay, 2025
I hope you enjoy your summer full of joy and remember the ocean creatures in their deep-sea worlds.
Visit my portfolio where you can see and purchase fun fish and other original paintings.