Morning Mist near Alexander Bay

Morning Mist Near Alexander Bay 20x10 pastel, copyright 2011

I was finally able to get a piece finished to my satisfaction by returning to summer vacation, this time along the St. Lawrence River.  Alexander Bay is a pleasant little resort town in the Thousand Islands region.  It was raining when we arrived in the evening, though the clouds broke up near sunset and a rainbow made a brief appearance.  In the morning we took a tour via paddle boat.  It started cool and misty but was quite warm and sunny by the time we returned to the hotel in the early afternoon.  The photo I took in morning of just a few of the 1700+ islands was the most intriguing one of the trip - I'm thinking of saving it for a photo exhibit.

This painting was a bit different for me since I usually prefer bright sunshine and saturated colors but the challenge of capturing the mood was too much to resist.  The most difficult part lay in making the water look like water rather than snow and ice.  In the photograph the water is too chopping and the lighting too poor to show reflections - but what works in a photo is not always the same as what works in a painting, so I took a bit of artistic license.  The size is also a bit unusual, but it seemed to fit the linear composition.