Escape artist | “Summer Waltz” by NG Swett | acrylic painting (& video)

“Summer Waltz” by NG Swett 2024 | 14x11” acrylic on canvas board

I herein reveal…

• what made me want to paint this scene

• what I was trying to express

• how I think it came out

• how I made the video (below)

• and more

Heat wave! It’s been so hot.

As much as one wants to go outside and enjoy the summer, IF it’s cooler inside, then one would like to stay inside.

By looking out the window at the beautiful summer day, one can feel FOMO — the fear of missing out. Summer is here, but it won’t be forever. Summer is the season to recreate, enjoy life, and take it easy. If not now, when??

What made me want to paint this scene

I spotted this lovely scene out the window and I thought I would set up my paints as if I were outside painting, only I would do it inside where it was cooler.

I saw a chance to play around with the indoor and outdoor scenes and have some fun with paints — and my smartphone!

The scene outside the window was so summery, breezy and lovely.

And the scene inside the window was also lovely. A bouquet of flowers that our daughter brought sat on the dining room table near the window. The striped curtains fall around the scene like theater curtains.

But there was also something not so lovely: the feeling of not really wanting to go out into the extreme summer heat, feeling a captive inside the house because of that. Of separation from nature. Of watching and waiting. The emptiness of the lounge chairs on the lawn and the chair at the table…

What I was trying to express

The process of painting the two scenes together in one painting — one a kind of outdoor plein air scene and another as a kind of indoor still life — showed me a few things:

• initially I felt fear and trepidation, which is visible in the video — doubt that I could make a good painting or a good video

• the sense of aliveness in the natural world I try to capture using a dabbed impressionist treatment

• gratitude and appreciation for a longtime home, a place near and dear to my heart and where my family lives, albeit a more staged and less changing indoor setting

• longing, yearning and meaning of empty chairs but also of possibilities

• challenged — demarking the window screen as the focal point, the exact place where indoor and outdoor meet; it picks up sunshine along its thin silvery grid lines

• defiance! The curtains lent themselves to a modernist, expressionist treatment — very satisfying! Like, I could make these curtains more exact or prettier, but I just did ‘em how I felt like doing them

• the lovely flowers, though challenging in their detail, came through best for me using some abstraction

How I think it came out

I mean, I like how the painting and the video came out. Works for me! I always think it’s a miracle when my painting ends up looking like anything at all, let alone forming a complete picture.

I really had fun with the digital and video tools, too.

Here is the video:

How I made the video

Here are some notes about how I made the video:

• I videotaped with my smartphone and a tripod

• I edited the video in Canva

• the waltz soundtracks are all from YouTube’s free audio library (for YouTube use only)

• the scenes of me inside the painting are done with the image of the painting overlaid with a video of me with the background removed

Where is the Outer Lands Archipelago on the U.S. east coast? Is it a real place?

A map and brief field notes by Nan Patience

Hey there, just a few quick field notes on this place. Do you know about the Outer Lands?

A lot of people don’t know about this archipelago, but you may know more about it than you think!

The islands of the Outer Lands Archipelago is located on the American northeastern coast. The long line of islands came into being 30,000 years ago when the Labrador Glacier halted at the mighty Atlantic Ocean.

The archipelago includes many beautiful and storied islands, such as Long Island, Nantucket, Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard, Block Island, and many more along this ancient coastal region. What most people don’t know is that there’s this fantastic name for them, the “Outer Lands.” If you didn’t know, now you know.

The islands all have four seasons and similar natural histories.

Remoteness has left them untouched by time compared to the mainland. This can be quaint but also quite interesting…

Their primordial wisdoms mix with local and global currents and find their way into most of my recent projects. I’ll have to wait and see if readers and art lovers can feel it. Can you see it on this website yet at all? I’m obsessed!

It’s where I live, and it’s HQ for 4seasonshelf.

P.S. I made this map on Canva by adding graphic elements to Google satellite imagery and with guidance from natural history book, Outer Lands, by naturalist and writer Dorothy Sterling as well as the “Outer Lands” Wikipedia article among other sources. See Wikipedia entry for Outer Lands.