Timber Jetty
“Timber Jetty” - original watercolor painting - 11” x 15”
This painting is a re-visit of a painting done almost 40 years ago, when I had just become serious about learning watercolor painting. At the time, I lived in New Jersey and would visit the ‘Jersey Shore’ from time to time in the summer. Like many beginning watercolor painters, I had a small foldable palette and some student grade paint, a handful of too-small brushes and not-so-great paper. But, I would carry the supplies to paint subjects I came across on outings and excursions. Most of the work from those days hasn’t survived.
But one of the few that did is the basis for the new work.
“Old Jetty” - 11” x 15” - painted somewhere at the Jersey Shore on June 5, 1986
At the time, I lived in New Jersey and would visit the ‘Jersey Shore’ from time to time in the summer. This painting was done on one of those visits. I no longer remember which shore town this is but I do remember visiting Point Pleasant as often as not. Wherever the original scene was, it was a painting I liked well enough at the time and still found interesting and worth keeping over all these years - even with it’s flaws. And, even with those flaws, the sense of light was there.
The new work, “Timber Jetty”, was done to explore that idea of light on this worn and weathered jetty, doing it’s job holding back both land and sea. I like to think it’s a ‘better’ work, with cleaner technique, a stronger composition and even better sense of light.