A Little Pastel Of Point Lookout Beach

The social distancing and wearing face masks from the pandemic continues and as it affects everyones daily life, sometimes causing feelings of anxiety and uncertainly, isolation, I feel the respite and sense of calm when I return to the little beach in my home town.  It has been a source of inspiration as an artist, along with the many memories growing up there as a child. I’m the 3rd generation of my mothers family coming to Point Lookout in 1932. My grandmother a school teacher purchased a fully furnished model home for about $3,000 on Freeport Ave, and is still there in much of its original form. 

My siblings and I would come every summer, take our shoes off and done a bathing suit from June until August. We lived as tanned, little sun kissed water rats, playing under the docks at low tide on the bay that was down our street when we were not at the beach, collecting crabs, shells, learning to fish. Teaching ourselves through sink or swim swimming lessons, we learned to navigate the bay and ocean. So it was in Point Lookout that I fell in love with the sea.

After a long day of beach fun and adventure we all slept together in sand filled beds. The house constantly had sand on the floor, in the beds, in our hair and ears. My mother let us run all summer without shoes to just roll in the sand, swim in the ocean and feel free being a kid.  Those were the old days now past with many endearing memories of my sisters and brothers that became my foundation and roots, which are dug deep into the sands of Point Lookout.  

My art as well has its foundation and roots in the tiny 13 block town. The days walking the shore finding beautiful shells or observing the starfish and horse shoe crabs washed up on the beach.

This drawing of the new walkover in Point Lookout has brought me to a new medium to try that I haven't used since college. Oil Pastels!  With my art studio in flux for the last couple years due to life changes I have been rediscovering mediums and creating art that is a little smaller and more portable. I'm still doing larger canvas paintings but not nearly as often as I like so switching to water colors or pastels are a good alternative.

My color palette remains mostly the same even though I've changed mediums. I love the richness of colors in the oil pastels.  With painting I’ve had to learn to let go of trying to stay in the lines and I don’t have to be exact, but instead, be a little more free and don’t feel like that the color of the sky has to be blue but can be pink, purple and yellow running through it. I’ve always struggled with being rigid and feeling like I've made mistakes since all the way back in art school. Each painting has been a process in finding freedom. Today as my art still continues to evolve, I am finally starting to feel the freedom of a brush stroke as it wisp’s away like a cloud in the sky.