The seaweed march to the tide. The flotilla only had their bottoms washed because yesterday morning’s tide was gentle. On more aggressive tides, the seaweed get marched out to swirling waters where they are provide shade, food and bring color to the sea.
The seaweed in south Florida is sargassum. People have remarked that they don’t like the seaweed. What an opinion to make! Seaweed isn’t garbage from the sea. It is a multifunctional element of the ecosystem of the coast. Baby sea turtles hide beneath it during their trek to the great sea. It provides anchoring for resting fish. And when tossed ashore by decluttering waves, it decays on the shore producing minerals for new plant growth along the coastline.
Some people say it smells. Ah! Well…as a mermaid, I have no such problem. My nose doesn’t work like the landlubbers’ noses. Seaweed doesn’t sting like the jellyfish we get lined on our shores in June. And I don’t think it stinks.
Visually, these are clumps of color. Southern color spectrum is full of yellows. Compare the on-site painting to the camera’s backup shot:
On-site painting is part of this artist’s continued training. Color filters in differently through the eye than the camera lens. The more an artist works at seeing color, the more colors seem to emerge. This takes training unless a person has super color rods naturally placed in their eyes. Mine take training and I can attest that it can come to one who only saw the world in grays. The seaweed in the camera shot is hardly interesting to look at. The camera is only a backup, not the main resource.
As for the waves, I chose to zen paint the waves. That means that water moves differently with each breath of the tide. Keeping an eye on one spot, for example, isn’t the same as a still life. The movement keeps changing so memorization of the patterns is difficult if not nearly impossible. So the quality of zen means to absorb what is ‘tide water moving’ and how it seems to feel on the paper with pigment colors trying to interpret it.
My painting is a full painting. On-site with the 96 Nupastel set and then at home with Unison pastels, quality material on Mi-Teinte paper make this a first full archival quality Plein Air pastel painting.
The south Floridian summer sun is warming up the seaweed and me.