Extreme Plein Air/Water Painting

" Fly Me to the Moon"  12x12" Oil on Canvas

Here's a funny story, albeit a little long. I got an email newsletter today from Plein Air Magazine. The title mentioned "Extreme plein air painting." My first thought was - boy, do I know what thats about. Then I clicked on the link and saw that my recent gig in NYC was the featured story. Who knew??  I told my husband and he said, "do they know about us drawing underwater surrounded by sharks? That's more extreme" I said "You're right - I don't think so, but I'll send them pictures if they want to see what real extreme plein air - err, water looks like. " So I did. I never meant to start a new category like "extreme painting" but, if the shoe fits, I think I'm wearing it.

A little history, my husband, Mark Hagan, a jazz bass player, scuba diver, surfer dude and inventor of the aquaSketch, (the only underwater drawing device), happens to also be a very talented artist on his own. He wanted to sketch during his dives, and since no waterproof drawing tool existed (no surprise there) and since he doesn't like to work from photos, this explains how his unique product came to be. Fast forward now, to a scuba magazine that heard about this and wanted to feature him sketching...sharks. He needed a videographer to take photos of this ordeal (or more specifically, a FREE chump videographer - thats how I got roped into this sordid ordeal). Long story short, and lots of balking and swearing, I agreed to get a scuba license for the purposes of filming him in action.  This link shows what I saw as I dove into a circling pool of sharks and then immediately and passionately wished I hadn't. I have to admit, the NYC deal was a bed of roses in comparison.

That being said, above I have posted another painting from my urban adventure. I set up at 10:00 am in a location where there were the least amount of people present. By 11 am I was in the epicenter of the most amount of people contained in one square block of Manhattan, on the hottest day of the summer. Little did I know that a Frank Sinatra impersonator would be giving a free concert just a few feet behind me. Clearly, everyone in New York knew but me.

In keeping with the title of this blog post, I have attached a photo of me drawing the sharks too. So I couldn't resist. I heard this advice once "don't be distracted by your subject". OK - I'm trying!