"Secrets of the Sea Cave"
©2024, 30" by 22", Watercolour
 
If you're brand new to my art, then you're probably unaware that I'm obsessed with glassware. It's become a running joke with many of my friends and acquaintaces that, when I mention a subject I have in mind for a painting, they'll ask what kind of a bottle I'm going to put it in.
 
For a while now, I've been wanting to put an old shipwreck in a water-filled bottle, but I didn't know what kind of a background to use until the summer of 2023. That's when I visited the Ovens Natural Park, not far from Lunenburg, Nova Scotia (a twenty-minute drive from my home) and descended an ancient set of concrete steps into a sea cave known as Cannon Cave. I was immediately struck by how it looked like a secret grotto, the kind a smuggler or a pirate would use to hide loot that could be accessed by boat under cover of darkness.
 
This mysterious - perhaps even secretive - background was, I thought, just what I was looking for. I took a number of pictures when I was there and, because I couldn't get a single image that combined the sea cave opening and the staircase in just the way I wanted, I later used Photoshop to combine aspects of about a half dozen of them. 
 
I've gotten into the habit of posting progress shots of my paintings online, even in the planning stages, mostly because I love the comments that my friends make. In this case, one of my online friends suggested that I add an octopus. Immediately, I thought it was a fabulous idea because it would introduce a unique challenge: that of how to paint tentacles that are wrapped around the bottle and magnified and distorted by the glass.
 
I was still finishing up my previous watercolour, and when I was finally able to start the development phase of this painting, I began by filling my trusty old rum bottle with sand from a local beach and topping it up with water. Then I made crude tentacles out of plasticine, wrapped them around the bottle, and placed it on top of an old chest that we'd bought at an estate sale a few months earlier. In behind all of this, I positioned my monitor which was showing the sea cave compilation I had created so that I could see what the walls of grotto looked like when distorted by the glass.
 
Using Adobe InDesign, I then combined this picture along with a number of other necessary elements and, with the appropriate octopus reference images in hand, I went to work (ok, went to play).
 
This was one of those rare paintings that worked right from the start. Every part of the creation process made me feel that I was capturing something unique and special. It seemed to have a life and personality all its own. Indeed, around about the time that the octopus' face had appeared, it suddenly occured to me out of the blue that the creature's name was "Otta" and that it was a she.
 
Despite all my advance planning, several carefully planned details changed as I painted, and I came up with other elements to include. I decided to really hammer the pirate theme home by adding first a scrolled up map and then an old mariner's compass with symbols embossed on its side. Also, to enhance the theme of pirate gold even more, I painted everything inside the cave with a shade of yellow-gold in it somewhere.
 
Although the original star of the painting was supposed to be the sunken wreck emerging from the shadow cast by the octopus, I don't blame other parts of the composition for drawing attention away from it. There is, to be frank, a lot going on. Personally, I love paintings that invite further examination. I also love a painting with the unknown at its very core.
 
For instance, the big mystery to me about this creation is whether Otta is coming or going. Is she emerging from the depths to reclaim the objects that are key to finding an elusive treasure? Or, is she bringing them up from her hiding place to present them to the viewer as a challenge?
 
I don't have an answer, but maybe I'll follow up with another painting sometime that expands on the idea. Or go in a completely different direction. Who knows?