The Refuge - Looking West

 
      This is one of the paintings that I did for the Plein Air Chincoteague event.  This view of the refuge is one that I have wanted to paint on my visits to the island in the past.   It is a view that most visitors to the Chincoteague Wildlife Refuge will recognize - almost everyone who stops along the road at this spot to photograph the vast marsh will see the wild ponies grazing in the distance.
   
     I was so fortunate to have some sunny days for this trip.  It was the same week that hurricane Lee was flooding Central PA, but since the storm stayed inland the coast was pretty nice.  There were some interesting cloud formations though - the large sky streak across my painting was, I think, the edge of the storm on the mainland.

 The Refuge - Looking West

12x24 oil

 
     This painting was carefully planned.  I even purchased a larger horizontal format canvas to take with me with this scene in mind.  Since the light changes drastically I worked on this 2 separate mornings and stopped at noon each time.  The painting sold at the Saturday exhibit to a nice couple from New Jersey who I had met on the beach earlier in the week and drove by several times as I was painting this.

     I was thinking I may sometime to do a larger studio version of this painting.

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