Low Tide - Great Diamond Island

Low Tide - Great Diamond Island is my first painting and commission for 2023. I painted it for a friend who spent his childhood there and has lots of good memories to share. Here’s some background about Great Diamond Island. It’s a 1.3 acre island in Casco Bay, Maine. It’s part of the city of Portland, but it’s not accessible by car. Less than 100 people live there year round. One of the memories my friend has about this place, and why he wanted this image painted, is that when the tide is low, people can walk from the island to one of the two smaller islands on either side, Little Diamond Island to the south and Cow Island to the north.

Working from a dark photo, I filled in the visual ambiguities and brightened it a bit. I also added a light in the window of the old house and streetlight, which I felt added a little drama and was compositionally necessary to offset the central sunset. My favorite complementary color scheme of cadmium light and brilliant blue was layered over a cadmium yellow underpainting to give the landscape a unified glow.