Manchac, Louisiana

Phil took me out to paint on location for the first time in almost 2 months, and we went all out!  All the way out to Manchac that is, which is about 40 minutes northwest of New Orleans.

Manchac is located between Lake Pontchartrain and Lake Maurepas in Tangipahoa Parish. From where we set up on a narrow island on the Owl Bayou, we could see the underside of Highway 51 to the east, and the residential area only accessible via boats to the west.

I painted one of the unused boardwalks.

Manchac Boardwalk
oil on canvas, 14"x18"

Phil said that this painting looked tonalist. It definitely has a lot of grays instead of intense color.  I had never really thought about characteristics in paintings in terms of tonalist vs. colorist in the past. But now I enjoy looking at Whistler's nocturnes and Twachtman's landscapes more than before.

I hope that the cross-contour lines show how this short boardwalk twists in different directions. The boardwalk in real life looked beautiful in the dappled sunlight.