Meig's Point, Hammonasset State Park, CT

I had scouted this location a couple days before I arrived to paint. A friend helped me haul my gear 200 feet up the ocean side path at Hammonasset State Park in Madison, CT. That morning, I had turned the clocks forward for daylight savings time. Now hundreds of people were as determined as I was to make the most of the day on this very path! Families, young and old, stopped every few minutes to observe, engage and encourage me! The wind was so powerful I had to run back to the car for duct tape and fashioned the cross bar of the wood support around the back of the french easel. The sun was hot even though my fingers were freezing. Paint was drying fast on brushes and wet-into-wet wasn't going to work. Thankfully, large mounds of color on my palette developed a very thick top skin. I used my palette knife to lift up the edges revealing luscious moist paint! I was pacing myself. I speed-mixed graduated values and layered the paint to accomplish a wet-into-wet effect without actually working wet-into-wet for the ocean. Even though this was a broncing buck of a painting, I felt the adrenaline of a down hill run while painting the timber fence with the deep purple-blue shadows at my feet.