Striving to create movement and evoke the sound of the surf, I painted the surf and spray in soft focus, and abstracted the bokeh effect created by my lens. Of course, we don’t see these blurred halos of light in the field, but we are all familiar with them from shallow depth-of-field photography. They trick the eye to not focus on detail, and they push the background into the distance. These three shorebirds stand on their surf-tumbled stone pedestal and stare directly at you. They never flushed, but they were curious about me. Fortunately, my telephoto lens enabled me to keep a good distance and still get the images I wanted.
Shorebirds and surf is a larger companion piece to Four shorebirds, and depicts the same flock of sandpipers and plovers in Wells, Maine.
Shorebirds and surf is a 16" x 16" acrylic painted on a wood panel. Like nearly all my paintings, the birds are rendered at actual size.
