Fizzy water maker found right on the beach! Still filled with water. Perhaps I could do something WITH the water inside the bottle.
The guy on the Evian bottle is equally appalled at the misuse of plastic water bottles!
It was a somewhat rocky return to Santa Barbara after the most incredible summer of my life. The hardest thing I found was leaving behind a place I felt was home in order to be in a place that just did not fuel my soul. But I've been working on changing my perspective. Santa Barbara is so beautiful and has so much to offer. My goal is to make the most of this year and the unique part of the world I am in, even if I know it is temporary.
In order to do that I have been hiking, beaching, and camping a lot more frequently than I did last year. So far it has helped!! One of the first paintings I did was on a water bottle (JEEZE HOW MANY WATER BOTTLES ARE JUST FLOATING AROUND OUT THERE!?) I've been doing a lot of plein air painting, which rocks, but I am trying to remind myself that plein air paintings are different from studio paintings with source images. The process is different, the point is different, and the result is different. And that's OK! It's okay if my plein air paintings aren't as realistic as I want them to be because the sun is constantly moving, the wind is blowing, the ocean is ebbing and flowing! Plein air has another dimension of MOVEMENT, which hopefully can be seen through more gestural and chunky paint strokes.
Anyways, I've found a lot of trash so far in SB. Most (of course!) have been plastic water containers! Almost lost my phone to the sea attempting to grab this soda maker(??) bottle in between a few rocks on the shore and had to bushwhack a bit to grab this Evian bottle on one of my favorite trails. They are screaming to be painted on!
Plein air water bottle painting. This one was especially fun (but difficult) to capture because of the setting sun and therefore rapidly changing shadows and colors.