Breaking Waves in the Fog
12“ x 16″, Oil on Panel, 2021
by Charles C. Clear III
Breaking Waves in the Fog is a painting that features waves emerging from the fog and breaking against a rocky shoreline in Narragansett, Rhode Island.
WHAT COLOR IS THE FOG ANYWAY?
I chose this subject as a practice study in subtle tones and values. The colors – especially those in the fog – are so muted that they’re barely visible….and yet to me they’re so distinct. In the fog I see yellows, pinks, purples, and greens in the field of white and gray. Are these colors actually there or is the act of observing changing the observed? I don’t know. In the end I guess it doesn’t matter because whatever you decide to paint is what is – at least in the painting.
OTHER FOGGY SEASCAPES
While I have painted in a fog many times…<cough cough>…this was only the third time that I had painted a foggy seascape. The other two times that I painted a foggy scene I was painting en plein air – or outdoors. Those paintings yielded mixed results. In the first, I was at a Public Access Point to the Waterfront off of Newton Avenue in Narragansett. On that day the fog lifted rapidly and changed the whole view before my very eyes. I thought that I would have an hour or more to paint but instead I was forced to finish that painting in a matter of minutes. In the second, I was painting on East Matunuck State Beach in the late afternoon and the fog thickened to the point where painting was no longer tenable and I was forced to stop.
For this painting I wanted to take my time in the Studio and see what was possible. It’s a quiet, understated painting, and yet it it perfectly captures the mood by the sea.
Charles C. Clear III
cc@oceanstateart.com