Beach Paintings...

While living at the beach in New Jersey, I started painting plein air more often, and also developed a series of paintings of the screen porch. I looked at Matisse quite a bit and worked towards capturing the differences in color between interior and exterior light.

This screen porch was a great subject to play with. For one the architecture of the room was a great framing element to organize the space. The view of the landscape outside is a series of sand dunes with sparse vegetation, which also made for some interesting shapes.

There are parts of these paintings that I still enjoy very much. I think they have a great energy and spirit to them. There are also things I wish I could change, but that is true with almost every painting I see again after a few years away from it. I guess that is the nature of the beast with painting, but it also makes me feel vulnerable posting some of these older images. It’s weird posting paintings that I am proud of, but also are things that I did 10+ years ago.

4 Responses to “Beach Paintings”

1. mike chamberlain says:

   April 12, 2012 at 11:51 am

   I’m loving these recent posts Colin. These are wonderful paintings. Are they large canvases?
2. Susan Graeber says:

   April 15, 2012 at 10:27 am

   Really. Enjoy seeing these! Such joyous color! Matisse and Vuillard and Porter etc! Wonderful! Susan
3. Colin Page says:

   April 17, 2012 at 11:06 pm

   Thanks Mike and Susan. Mike these are mostly in the range of 30″ square. Susan, I was definitely looking at those artists quite a bit when I was making these.
4. Mary Sheehan Winn says:

   April 23, 2012 at 4:53 pm

   I’m pleased that you reposted these as I’ve not seen them. Great hint about Matisse, too.
   I feel the same way about my paintings down the road but less and less, although there’s always something that I feel I could tweak.
   These are beautiful.