Silver grey skies today let the mysterious blue bergs show their true colors. We disembark the ship to visit Horseshoe and Stonington Islands today. Our icebreaker, Kapitan Khlebnikov, has 2 helicopters which can hold 8 passengers and gear, thus making these landings possible. Zodiacs (inflatable boats) cannot reach shore due to pack and fast ice. These islands were research stations at one time. It's tempting to sketch them but I am drawn away by the blue bergs and the vastness of this place. On Horseshoe Island I'm attracted to the arrangement of icebergs in the middle ground and the fact that these shapes are echoed in the mountains behind.
On Stonington Island a huge blue ice wall immediately strikes me. To paint this ice wall requires a panoramic format; thus, I divide a half sheet horizontally with thin painter's tape. The advantage of working on loose, larger sheets is that I can create different shapes of paper, plus also work on two paintings at a time on the same page. Sometimes it takes a wash awhile to dry, so I can be working on another painting on the same page.
As an image, the ice is complicated, and yet has such gesture and rhythm throughout, so I spend some time drawing (with an HB pencil) the essential crevasses. There isn't time to paint the whole ice wall on site, so what is important is to do a small part very well, and let the viewer fill in the empty spaces.
The blue ice color is very difficult in that it can be hot cobalt and cool turquoise simultaneously. The sky color can change the color of the reflective ice so fast! In this case, I block and model small sections at time, so I can complete an area before a wash freezes. Working light to dark, I start with a wash of violet, and drop in a bit of rose pink and yellow. While the paper is still wet, I add the darker blues: a combination of turquoise, cerulean blue (red shade), and some more opaque horizon blue--making sure I let some of the pinky violet under wash show through. When a section is dry, I add the next value to the darker ice cracks. In this case, a wash of turquoise blue blocks in the shape. While that wash is still wet, I add a darker Winsor violet with a touch of ultramarine blue. I paint the entire painting with my oriental wolf hair brush, which can make interesting organic marks and cut a hairline crack, as well.
"From Horseshoe island, Marguerite Bay, Antarctica." 10in. x 15in. watercolour
"Ice Wall, Stonington, Antarctica." 8in. x 22in. watercolour
Last, I block in the sky--using lots of Winsor & Newton ox gall flow medium while paying attention to the light values. Light sky is in contrast with dark ice, while an opposite or counterpoint is dark sky illuminating light ice.
The process of a painting can be a metaphor for the interrelationship of dark and light in our own lives.
Painting with Wolf hair brush, Ice Wall, Stonington (photo by Daisy Gilardini)
This sea day, as we move through the pack ice, is of great relief for resting the senses. It is a soft fog and the ice pans gently rise and fall with the ocean swells, as we venture toward the remote Peter the First Island in the Bellingshausen Sea.
-- David
More information:
The Bellingshausen Sea, named after Admiral Thaddeus Bellingshausen, is on the west side of the Antarctic peninsula.
Sea ice is ocean water that freezes, in contrast to icebergs that are pieces of glaciers and are thus composed of snow (fresh water). Sea ice is formed over a period of time.
Fast ice is sea ice that has formed along the coasts and is "fastened" to the coasts. The ice David is seeing shows an array of colors. The thicker the ice, the whiter it appears. If ice looks gray, it's thinner, holding larger pieces of ice together.
Pack ice is a floating mass of old ice. During winter, pack ice expands to cover about 8 percent of the southern oceans.
For wonderful pictures of sea ice and fascinating answers to questions about it, visit http://southport.jpl.nasa.gov/polar/iceinfo.html.