Moored Off Little Diamond

I decided to try a little summer marine painting using acrylic. This scene is from a cruise taken on my dad's boat several years ago. He loved the ocean and was a skilled sailor. Every year he took our entire family out on his Grand Banks trawler for a day on Casco Bay. The bay is renown for it's many islands and is a mecca for boaters of all kinds. We'd usually moor off an island and have a cookout on the beach or pull up to a dock in a small harbor for a meal of fresh local seafood. There's nothing like a day on the water with the salt air filling your lungs and unrelenting sun to increase one's appetite. It rejuvenated our senses and everything tasted so good. We all enjoyed watching the variety of boats that traveled the bay from lovingly restored antique beauties to brand new power boats, sleek and built for speed.
These two were quietly moored off Little Diamond Island, a favorite and well known spot for the locals. The water was dead calm in this protected cove and I liked the reflections of the masts and lines on the gently rippled water.
This is 5 x7 .

Chop

Cliff Island is the most remote inhabited island in Casco Bay and is eleven miles from the mainland.
The ferry ride takes an hour and a half and it's the last stop on the line. This gentleman, whose name is Billy O'Reilly, is one of only 65 hearty year 'round Cliff Islanders. He's a tall rugged lobsterman with a face that's been etched by a life of working on the sea. Billy's lineage traces back to one of the first families to settle the island more than two centuries ago and I have no doubt that he knows the waters around the island and bay as well as he knows the back of his hand. When the photos were taken for this painting it was a bitter cold December day, but the sun was so bright it lit up the dinghy like a red hot frying pan. Billy was hamming it up for the camera here.....hence the toothy grin just barely seen through his heavy beard. I love the simplicity of this image... just a man and his boat in the water.. but it's a bit surreal because they appear to be levitating over the deep blue.
Maybe he knows something we don't...
This is one of two paintings that were recently accepted into the Pastel Society of the West Coast's 21st International Exhibition, which runs May 8-June 2, at the Sacramento Fine Arts Center in Carmichael, CA .