Image of the Week: Sleeping by the Sea

© D. Yael Bernhard

My go-to place by the sea is Cape Ann, Massachusetts – north of Boston – where I've been going since my parents first took me there as a child.  The rocky, scalloped coastline with its fishing boats and quaint New England architecture has been attracting artists to the region for centuries.  I spend my time there walking the beaches, collecting seashells and speckled granite rocks worn smooth by the ocean, and of course, painting and sketching.  

Time constraints have limited me to working small.  If I bring home unfinished paintings, they tend to get swallowed up by the obligations of daily life.  I work quickly, and sometimes use the leftover paint on my palette to do another study – for subject matter is everywhere on Cape Ann.  I feel like I'm walking around in a painting the whole time I'm there.

I also try to find a place to stay right on the ocean.  Cape Ann is a place of mostly boulder beaches, and there's nothing better than sleeping with the sound of the tide rushing in over rocks.  I'm a big believer in generating artistic inspiration by flooding the unconscious with impressions, and there's no better nourishment for the muse than infusing it with the soothing sounds and salty smells of the sea.  Indeed, in Jungian psychology the ocean itself is a symbol of the unconscious – all of which makes the extra money of renting a seaside room worthwhile.

On my most recent trip to Rockport – my favorite town on Cape Ann, established in 1623 – sleeping by the sea became the subject (and title) of this painting.  Curled up in the successive sounds of incoming waves, I felt that unique sense of relaxed participation in life that can only be expressed in an image.  I chose a limited palette of burnt umber, ocean blue and peachy skin tones.  Limiting color enabled me to focus more on shape, and to suggest an interrelationship between water and mammal, tied together by wavy, spiraling lines. 

Sitting by the sea as I painted, I used the leftover gouache on my palette to do a quick study of an outcropping of rocky shoreline, adding just a bit of green and ochre in the bushes and aqua in the sky.  Here my focus was on capturing the changing colors of the rocks exposed by low tide.

Using the same palette to express both internal and external subject matter was extremely satisfying.  In both cases, these colors expressed my seaside mood.  Nothing pleases me more as an artist than cross-fertilization, either between two different art forms, such as music and painting, or two different types of subjects.  Maybe I'll explore that idea further next week.

More images are unfolding in my mind from this spiral-shaped figure as well.  You never know what will emerge from the ocean of the unconscious.

A good week to all!



D Yael Bernhard
http://dyaelbernhard.com
children's books • fine art • illustration 
posters • cards • calendars