Painting and Birding 'round the Long Island Sound

Some birders I know speak of "their patch" being the place that they bird so often that they know it intimately, and hardly miss anything that comes through.  I'm going to borrow the phrase to refer to the place where I do a lot of my plein-air painting.  That place is Bruce Park in Greenwich CT.

"Fair day at the Park" 2007, Sean Murtha

It's not because it's particularly attractive to me; in fact I prefer wilder, more natural locations with longer views, and Bruce Park is a rather cramped, manicured town park with tennis courts, public sculpture, gardens and paved paths.  But the day-job is at the Bruce Museum, situated at one end of the park, so it is conveniently located for lunchtime painting trips.  If I eat quickly I can have 50 minutes or so to paint. 

"Snowmelt"  2009, Sean Murtha

Most of these paintings are, I admit, pretty crude, and don't go any farther than my studio.  Some are saved for reference but most wind up wiped down and re-used.  But it keeps me in practice and every now and then I get a good start and am able to fix it in the studio into a showable piece.

"Nuthatch" 2010, Sean Murtha.  Plein-air painting from Bruce park with studio additions from sketches also done in the park.

Robert Moffat Bruce bequeathed his home and hundred-acre estate to the town of Greenwich when he died in 1908, stipulating that the house become a museum and the land become a park.  The land had previously been rather wild and marshy, with a tidal mill situated where the wetlands drained off to the Long Island Sound.  I probably would have prefered painting it then!  The marshes were subsequently filled, leaving a string of tidal ponds, and over the years various ammenities came and went.  In 1958, a portion of the park was given up to build I-95, which now creates an unsightly and noisy northern border to the park.  The remaining 60 acres are divided by roadways, ponds, gardens and rock outcroppings, ball fields, playgrounds and tennis courts.  There are, thankfully, a few neglected corners, especially at the eastern end of the park.

"Fallen" 2010, Sean Murtha.  A neglected corner of Bruce Park-- neglected by gardeners, but not by the sun!

Diorama painter Fred Scherer once told me that when he was struggling with some aspect of a background painting, he could go off into Central Park and find the solution.  "The answers" he said "can always be found in nature", and I took this advice to heart.  Bruce Park is very similar to Central Park, and despite the fact that it doesn't have the wild vistas I would prefer, it has rocks, trees, and reflections, and is subject to all the wonderful atmospheric effects of the New England year.  Even if the paintings I do there are not good enough to frame, I can always learn something.  And that, I think, is a pretty good way to spend a lunch break!

"Rocky Bank"  2007, Sean Murtha