Dear Graham,
This morning we did our morning walk later than usual. I slept in and was moving slow and decided to meditate before walking. Usually, we rise around 5:30 and do our walk at 6:00. This morning I showered, meditated, made a pineapple mango smoothie. Tom and I sat on the back porch drinking our breakfast and staring at the waves roll in.
We began our walk around 9:00 AM. The tide was low and the beach was empty. The first thing I noticed was that the sea to the west was a dull gray green beneath a gray western sky. But farther down the shoreline the world seemed to change entirely. There the sky was bright blue and sunny, and the water became a deep, rich blue green filled with sparkling waves. The contrast was so striking it felt like two different ecosystems sharing the same beach.
It became clear to me how deeply water borrows its color from the world around it — especially the sky above it. Oceans, lakes, rivers, and streams are constantly reflecting light and atmosphere. A gray sky can turn the sea silver, green, or dull slate. A bright blue sky scatters blue light across the water, making it shimmer sapphire and turquoise. At sunrise or sunset the same water can glow gold, pink, or crimson.
But the sky is only part of the story. Water itself quietly shapes color too. Pure water absorbs reds and oranges more easily than blue wavelengths, so deep water naturally carries a blue cast even without reflection. Shallow water becomes clearer or greener depending on sand, foliage, algae, or stones beneath it. The earth and sky collaborate continuously, painting every stream, lake, and ocean moment by moment.
As we walked, I felt as though the beach was revealing this hidden conversation between light, water, sky, and land — a living canvas changing with every cloud and wave.
I started to think about how I could capture the colors of the water on my canvas. I haven’t painted in a long time and most of the paintings I have done have been mountain paintings. Now I find myself living by the ocean for the first time in my life and want to caputure sea scapes at sunrise and sunset and all times of the days. I want to paint with bright blues and greens and tourquaise and yellow ochran and beiges and earth reds and oranges. But also shades of greys and blues. I am both excited and intimitaded to begin painting again and somehow expressing and capturing the way I see and feel as I walk upon the sandy shore and stare out into the water and up into the sky and across sandy beaches and Red Rock cliffs and hills, and green palm trees and colorful pink, yellow white flower foliage.
Graham, I would like to teach you all that I know about color and painting.
With Love,
CC
CC
