Pristine and forgotten places

Estuaries are overlooked places. You can’t build there; you can’t put a road there; and you can’t make money off of them. So they’re ignored by most people, which is just fine. They need the wild peace of things so that plants and animals can flourish in them.

That’s why I often seek out estuaries as a place to paint. They’re pristine. Yesterday I was exploring the roads around the head of North Bay near Allyn, when I saw a small turnoff. I drove a bit further, turned around, and came back to discover a small county park. I found a tiny parking lot and a trail through the woods to the estuary. It’s almost invisible and rarely visited, just a perfect place for a watercolor. I waded through the thick grass until I found this island of trees along the shore.

I used intuitive color choices for this painting. Not all these colors are noticeable when you look at the estuary. But by choosing colors by intuition, its possible to bring out colors in the spectrum that we don’t normally see. So even though the colors seem vivid, they also seem in character with the scene.