Confession from the Old Man and the Sea

28 January 2022

Confession from the Old Man and the Sea

Evening Prayer Brunswick Heads, 25 January 2022, oil on canvas board, 30 X 25 cm

I’m not sure what I think of the picture but I really liked the session and that’s because I had to struggle so much after losing this study several times like a fisherman with a swordfish on the line.

I had gone out to work even as rain was pelting the windshield on the way there because I had been inside all day and I was going stir crazy. During the short drive there I began to feel foolish thinking it would clear up. I found myself looking for splatches of blue and white everywhere in the sky but to no avail.

 

When I did arrive at the beach the sky suddenly looked angry with dark clouds rolling in from the Southeast anda light rain. But I went out and set up anyway because I believed. Sometimes that can be enough.

So I began to mix colours and was ready to do something, anything, despite the light rain. My heart was begging the clouds to back off for an hour and I cursed my foolish self silently.

Just as I was starting a canvas board a large dog began scampering out of the footpath and bounded around on the dunes in a state of joy. At this beach, dogs are always the first to announce the arrival of people. Then, moments later, small kids would sprout out laughing and shouting, then a few older ones would appear. After a short time, the parents arrive at the end of the small sandy path as it opens generously at the wide beach. They might be accompanying the grandparents who follow up like the caboose. But one thing is for sure, when they look up to see me, this funny-looking guy in front of an easil under the rain in the middle of nowhere, they almost always smile with surprise and perhaps laughter.  “Finally!” I sometimes think to myself,  “All my life, I’ve waited for people to be overjoyed at the sight of me.” 

But on this particular afternoon it was a family of five gals appearing from the pathway. They immediatly pulled out an enormous umbrella from Bunnings and began to huddle beneath all it except the dog, which had come up to say hello to me quickly before racing down to the water’s edge. Three generations, a grandma, her two daughters each with young girls of their own, all huddled together like in an advertisement for Woolies or Coles. They were staring out at the dark sea under a Bunnings umbrella when barely a minute later they apparently decided to leave and called to their dog who obligingly came back sort of straight away. I was getting a little wet mixing colours but still full of hope for a picture. 

When the family passed by me they smiled, and I said to them:

“You know,,,,if you leave it will stop raining don’t you?

But if you stay, the rain will continue.”

They laughed as I did, getting soaked.

Then I added

“Thank you for leaving!”

They laughed again, and were gone like in a puff of smoke.

But to my own surprise, I was right, and I managed to finish the session as the clouds gradually parted. I made two things, the first was rain streaked but this was the second. Yes, it’s strange and different, but there is someting about it that speaks of the session. Despite my doubts, my angel Grace, had made an appearance and allowed me a session full of surprises.