A few years
ago, for our 25th anniversary, my wife and I took a trip to the northwest
US and Canada – Washington state and British Columbia. The scenery is
phenomenal – towering mountains, huge stands of Douglas Fir, mist enshrouded
lakes of azure, thunderous waves breaking on rocky shores. We traveled
throughout the region and took more than a thousand photos. There were
beautiful landscapes everywhere we looked.
Ruby Beach was
one spot we visited. It’s located on the southwest coast of the Olympic
Peninsula, and is one of the most well known and visited beaches along the
Pacific coast. It gets its name from the reddish sand that sometimes gathers on
the beach. The beach catches a large amount of driftwood, which only adds to
the picturesque nature of the area. The iconic sea stacks that dot the
shoreline make this beach perfect for a painting. The morning we visited the
beach mist was still hanging just above the waves rolling in off the Pacific.
For us, and the other people who walked the shoreline that morning, it was a
picture out of a wonderful fantasy.
While
looking through the images from that day I came across a number of them that I
felt would make a wonderful painting. I cropped a few of them in a variety of
ways to get different views. On closer notice I found one that caught a group
of people walking the beach, backlit by sunlit mist, and I zoomed in on that
group a bit. They would provide a great focal point for the painting.
I haven’t
made any final decisions on the layout – or the medium - yet. I’ll discuss more
of that in my next update. Included here are a few potential compositions.
