
I sold my sailboat (Lydia) early in the summer and bought a motor boat. I miss the sound of the halyards banging against the mast, tiller steering, ropes and wires everywhere, and the challange of trying to sail off a lee shore. Still the new boat has an oven, fridge and the crew is happy. Having a boat allows me to get to places where the landlubber can’t go. I love to paint the river and the lakes. Having a boat means you can paint the shore from the lake, rather than the lake from the shore. The painting above (called Coos Bay) records Lydia’s last voyage. There are a lot of memories in it, a lot of emotion.
I’m reading a book on Monet at the moment. It’s slow going, I read, view his work, google some aspect or other, and reflect. I’m finding that we have a lot in common. Monet too had a boat. Frustrated by painting the river from the bank, he wanted to paint the bank from the river. His many seascapes depict the Normandy coast and Brittany, but in adult life, he always lived on the bank on the Seine. Having set up his floating studio, he found he had to acquire another boat because the wife and kids just wanted to mess about on the water. So, he had a studio boat and a pleasure boat.
My new boat is nicely set up for drawing and painting. I fear, though, that I might have to follow Monet’s example and get another soley for plein air painting. Once the motor boat gets into a safe harbour, it tends to stay there, near all the shorebased distractions (like shops).
In relation to incidential trivia, did you know that when Monet was beginning to gain traction as an artist, the President of France was non other than a Patrick McMahon. Monet’s youngest son was born on St Patricks day, just like my youngest son. (Monet didn’t go for Pat but called him Mick instead).
I’ll post up my waterlillies another time.