There's nothing like it! • Mark Norseth

Just back from tilting at my windmills this morning at Kailua beach, and it was unbelievably good.

The 22 x 28″ canvas managed to stay planted on the French easel, perhaps not the optimum choice for such a windy morning. But I’d scouted a protected position when I did the pencil sketches, and was pretty confident that I’d be okay.

There’s nothing like a lay-in that goes well. It’s like that great date with your spouse- to-be, where you foresee all the great things that are going to happen, and everything seems fresh and clear and possible. Painterly optimism can soar in this first stage, as it did for me this morning.

The setup was perfect because I like to lay-in a significant painting on an overcast day. Everything is reduced to midtones and nicely flattened, and since lay-in time can be one of the longest of my recurring sessions, an overcast day is good. And I got what I wanted, a cool morning with a smart breeze. After getting in the major preliminary tones, the sun broke through. Everything lit up, the proverbial scales fell from my eyes, and I could see the path before me, much as I’d experienced when I selected this spot a week ago. Shadows intensified, colors emerged, people began milling about in the trees in brightly colored beachwear as if they’d risen out of the sand.

Kailua untitled, oil on linen 22 x 28″

So, this is now a complete go, and I look forward to tackling it. I have great hopes, but also enough experience to recognize that in the hours and days to come, that optimism will be tested by disappointments and shortcomings yet to be revealed.

I’ll probably reach a point of disillusionment where I’ll ask ” What did I see in this place? What am I after?” (That’s what the pencil sketch helps with). I’m already skittish about the centrality of those canoes in the painting, but my hope is that, since they aren’t the central subject but merely an incidental shape-part of the whole, I can be forgiven. In order to get the tree mass on the left where I needed it, something had to give.

I’m hopeful!