Reference Point
When painting my small semi abstract landscapes I feel a need to find a place where the viewer can access my plein air art. Where can the eye of the viewer find a reference point to start looking at the painting? The main way I try to achieve this is through the use of perspective. Even when I paint abstracts invariably there is a line.
Why the Line
Years ago I used to wonder why I felt a need to create that line in my art – either realistically or abstractly. Why the line across the canvas? Even if there is disruption of the line broken up with objects or other lines, behind those intrusions there is the line. In my case one would have thought that should be easily figured out. I say that because since I was a small boy I have seen the ocean almost every day of my life. I lived either with a direct view or a block or two from the beach. Even the years when I was in the armed services I couldn’t escape the ocean as I was in the Navy. And for seventeen years my studio had a full on, white-water ocean view. And for fifty years my home had a ocean view.
It all seems so obvious now but one time I was sitting on the beach, looking out at the ocean and there it was. The line I had been seeing every day. The blue sky – the blue ocean. The horizon was right there slashed across my view.