Judie Stang's World: Island hopping in the Caribbean

Thursday, March 7, 2013

Island hopping in the Caribbean

Painting by the pool

Gary and I decided to "treat" ourselves to a cruise last month. We found a 10 day cruise to the Eastern Caribbean embarking from Ft. Lauderdale. It had two "at sea" days before and after visiting 5 islands, none of which we had been to. We also liked the fact that each island we visited had a dock so we didn't need to be tendered into any of our ports.

I decided to take my assorted watercolor blocks, pens, and my traveling watercolor pallette instead of trying to handle wet oils in our close quarters. I haven't used watercolors very much recently as I have been doing a lot of "plein air " painting so I had to get use to my watercolors again. I forgot how much I enjoy the fluid effects of watercolors and the "drizzly" effects of pen and ink. It was a great medium for the Caribbean waterscapes. At each island, I took digital photos of things that appealed to me and then I downloaded them onto my laptop and painted from the photos on the pool deck. I did 8 paintings, 2 8x10's and 6 6x8's. Lots of people stopped at the table to see what I was doing, so it was "almost" like plein air painting. I sold 2 paintings that provided a "one-of-a- kind" gift for some fellow cruisers.

Antigua Shopping Mall 6x8

St Croix Bay 6x8

Some of my favorite observations were the beautiful color change in the bays, from a transparent aqua in the shallow areas, to a beautiful deep blue in the distance. I loved the colorful buildings in the shopping areas and all the "buzz" of the busy shoppers. I also came to the conclusion that palm trees are very challenging to interpret. There is a fine line between not enough and too much info. Here is my gallery of island observations. I hope you enjoy looking at them as much as I enjoyed painting them.