Living Waters Undulate, Inundate, and Facinate Artists

"Skudeneshavn Norway" 20 x 16 Oil on canvas

It’s always hard to get ahead of the curve. Just when you think you’re pulling forward, someone or something pulls the plug on you.  Last week it was a leaky roof. Our place is about 17 years old, and one by one, the houses around us have been getting new tile roofs. Now it’s our turn.

Once the water gets through, however minimal, the damage above has already occurred and wood rot begins. We’ve repaired three fascias’ already, and there may be more. But that’s “water under the bridge.” (I couldn’t resist).

When our family lived in Kansas City, we battled water continually. Except for a bedroom for our teenage son, the leaky parts of the basement had prevented us from refurbishing it.

Finally we found a solution to the crack that ran diagonally down one wall. A friend who repaired swimming pools slathered it with a rubber adhesive that sealed any leaks. We were ecstatic.

"Arabesque" 18 x 14 Oil on canvas

After several dry months went by, we painted and laid carpet in our new family room. The children and their friends finally had a place to hang out. And then the spring rains started up with a vengeance. We held our breath, but the patch held.

The rains continued; one of the heaviest downpours in K.C. history. The front window well filled and flooded into the basement, and then another and another. We started a bucket brigade, but couldn’t keep up with the water filling the wells back up again.

We ended up taking out our soggy new carpet and replacing it with area rugs that could be rolled up in a hurry and put away. We dug trenches around the wells and added pipes to draw the water away. We slanted the front yard so the water wouldn’t come towards the house. Alas, nothing worked. A hard rain could still wipe us out in a matter of minutes simply by filling up the window wells.

"Egret Reflections" SOLD/Prints available.

Water is one of the necessities of life we cannot live without. We fear it. We’re drawn to its sparkling surfaces and its shadowy depths. Without water we would perish; and yet, we have difficulty controlling its unpredictable movements and enormous strength.

Recent flooding this summer in the Midwest brought back so many memories. Artists try to capture the violence and beauty of water; its serenity and peace.

How do you make reflections both in the water and on top of it? Small wavelets on the surface create white netting in the sunlight. Depth changes color. Clarity demands a different technique to indicate a translucence that depicts the sandy or rocky bottom below. 

Painting water requires practice. Once you get the hang of it, brushing on water is fun and addictive. 

Water droplets seem almost impossible until you realize that you have to get away from the canvas before they appear realistic. When you learn how to make them, you have to learn when to stop. Too many of them may give your canvas the look of poke a dots.

"Kelly's Rose" (A rose heavy with rain water) 16 x 12 Acrylic on Panel

It is easy to get carried away as you get better and better at painting lakes, seas, oceans, rivers and puddles. Samples of my own work throughout this blog illustrate how you get better at painting water with practice.

“To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong.”
Joseph Chilton Pearce

I chose the following three artists to demonstrate their personal techniques for water paintings done in acrylics.

Marion Boddy-Evans shows you how to paint water droplets 

@ Marion Boddy-Evans Water Drops

Lori McNee has the best suggestions for painting different types of water 

@ Lori McNee Painting Tips

Mark Waller shows you the fine details and colors that make up the ocean’s surface.

Tides by Any Other Name Would Smell as Stinky!

"Window on Pine Island" 16x20 wrapped oil on canvas

What is coarse, toxic, sweeps up marine life in its wake and kills? If you guessed a broom, we're done here. If you answered pollution, you're close. If you said red tides, you're dead on. Never heard of these menacing algae? Let me introduce you.

Every summer at the height of tourist season, a tangle of brownish algae and dead fish cascades onto the Gulf Coast's pristine beaches and the stink is overwhelming; as my mother used to say, "Enough to gag a maggot." What makes these algae such a menace? They produce one of the deadliest toxins known to man.

(original photo of Pine Island)

These harmful algal blooms or HABS wreak havoc on local fishing industries to the tune of $82 million each year. The toxins affect the central nervous system of fish, killing them in vast numbers; limiting the quantities of fresh fish that fisheries depend on. Toxins also may poison shellfish like clams, oysters, and mussels, and make the humans who eat them sick.

These red tide masses affect marine ecosystems in a number of ways. Dense blooms can block sunlight that benefit good algae and sea grasses needed for food. Wildlife and marine mammals like seabirds, manatees, turtles and dolphins may not only get sick, they may die. Hundreds of manatees died as a result of Red Tide in 2012. Humans may suffer severe respiratory or skin ailments. In addition to that, red tides are downright unsightly.

My first reaction to walking on the beach after a red tide wash up was repulsion. Hundreds of putrid dead fish trapped in strange-looking seaweed covered the white sand driving me and many other tourists back to our hotels. Like them, I wanted to know what this stuff was, what it did, and how we could stop it.

Red tides are composed of microscopic algae known as dinoflagellates; their scientific name: karenia brevis. The algal cells are asexual. They produce simply by dividing. To complicate matters, each cell is capable of movement via two flagella that propels them through the water. There is no brainwork involved in this confluence or joining of forces. They drift with the water's ebb and flow, bumping together to form large clumps or "blooms" as their numbers increase.

What makes dinoflagellates different from other microscopic algae? At least two things: their rapid growth and their toxicity both of which raise more questions than answers. Why do these organisms suddenly explode into a massive growing binge? What triggers this growth and why does it produce toxins in some algae and not in others?

Biologists and scientists believe pollution of our waterways may be the leading factor. Pesticides, fertilizers and chemicals are washed into surrounding rivers and lakes and eventually find their way into the sea. At the mouth of these inlets and tributaries, red tides get their first burst of growth which certainly points to pollution as the cause.

But there's a catch: red tides are not a new phenomenon. Fish kills from deadly algae were recorded in 1840 and as long ago as the Spanish explorers who wrote about them in their logs. After years of red tides research, there is still no conclusive evidence or link to pollution. Like many quirks of nature, the trigger may be from natural causes or a series of events that are little understood.

The Fish and Wildlife Research Institute (FWRI) in Florida conducts Red Tide Reports on a regular basis during critical growing periods. Using satellite imagery, high levels of chlorophyll are monitored for possible resurgence of red tides. With the help of modern technology, experts record the size, rate of growth, and location of these HABS.

FWRI works in partnership with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) under the supervision of the U.S. Department of Commerce. NOAA's goal is to "provide the tools to prevent, control, or mitigate the occurrence of HABS." Because red algae can be found in almost any waterway, research labs are positioned worldwide.

(I want to paint this beautiful Fuschia)

If you would like information about red tides in your own locale, go to http://www.noaa.gov.

What is the missing component that explains why red tides grow faster and wilder during certain times of the year? Is pollution the cause as some suggest? Or is it increased water temperature that naturally encourages the growth of most algae? Until the mystery is solved, Gulf residents and vacationers around the globe must continue to endure the irritation, the blight and the stink of red tides.

Do you have a "stinky" problem in your neck of the woods? Please share it with us.