Our Bandon beach walks take us past this crescent shaped chamber created by the rock formations stretching out into the sand. It is a nice respite on those windy days. Spring brought vivid yellow blooms to the gorse clinging to the rock and set off the muted colors of the rest of the scene.
This view is from south of Face Rock looking toward Cathedral Rock. The incoming waves brought white froth lines which helped compose this painting of some of Bandon Beach’s sea stacks.
After a hard rain the Coquille River carries mud into the ocean which makes a colored demarcation around the river’s mouth. The ocean took on stripes of color as the waves washed back against the shore.
This was painted plein air at the cliff at Seven Devil State Recreation Site near Bandon, Oregon. The gorse on the cliff was striking with its yellow blooms even in the slight ocean haze. Painting plein air gives me a chance to feel the atmosphere as it works its way into the painting.
People in Bandon hate gorse. It was introduced by Lord Bennett, one of the city’s founders to stabilize the sand. It does that well, but it also is a horrible thorny weed that is very oily and combustible. It was a major contributor to the 1936 fire that destroyed most of the city of Bandon, Oregon.
Our beach walks take us past here nearly everyday, but this day the receding tide made a perfect reflecting pool for these rocks. The little fat seal shaped rock often gets ignored by the tourists, as it stands back between the famous Elephant Rock on the left and the rock with a series of passages and caves on the right.
This painting was done from a reference photo taken on the same evening as my earlier painting, Secret Rock Garden. It is a fascinating place to explore and paint, different each time the ocean has a minus tide and permits visitors. In this view, the light streams through the hole in the massive rock to illuminate the tide pools and sea life covered rocks. I like how the tide pool points back to the window in the rock.
