Turtle Cove - January 19, 2014 - Icing Over

This morning I arrived at the cove at about 9 a.m. I begin my photography at the northeast corner of the second pond. As I walk around the perimeter and out onto the berm, I am regretting my lack of gloves and hat. It is bitterly, cruely cold and my hands are aching in just a few short minutes of exposure. The payoff is that there is ice on the ponds and broken, scudding clouds allow enough beautiful morning light to make the golds of the phragmites and marsh grasses glow against the gray purples of the leafless winter woods.

I chose to paint from the roadside vantage point just north of the berm. This provided a view down and across the marsh and second pond with interesting branches breaking into the foreground.

Turtle Cove December 29, 2013 - Dropping Tide

It is a cool, but comfortable, gray morning. The certainty of rain hangs in the air. Pete drops me off by Glover's Rock so I can explore the possibilities for my concept series "A Month of Sundays - Turtle Cove."
As I walk up into the woods on the west side of the second pond, I am struck by how opened up it is now to the golf driving range. I wonder about loss of cover and habitat for the smaller critters like foxes and rabbits as a result of all the clearing that has occurred.
There are many vantage points that present great opportunities for paintings as I work my way around the east side of the second pond and onto the dividing berm.
I just cannot warm up to the bridge design, it still looks like a window washer's scaffold to my eye.
In reviewing my photographs later, the view I chose to paint first is of the second pond looking north from the berm at the east end of the bridge. The tide is low enough to reveal a slash of purple brown mud below the pale gold of the marsh grasses edging the pond.