Monsoon in Takoradi
“Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves suck back, and fling
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.”
MATTHEW ARNOLD
Takoradi is a coastal town in Ghana, where beauty, poverty and malaria live side by side. When it is Monsoon Season, the rain falls down without respite, the entire world becomes waterlogged and “clouds” build in the great trees and move upwards.
I used 300mm x 400mm Canson Mi Teintes pastel paper and Schmincke, Sennelier and Unsion pastels.
Monsoon in Takoradi belongs to the following groups:
! Inspired Art !, * Painted Nature *, AFRICAN ART AND PHOTOGRAPHY, Beach Art, Contemporary Pastel Painters (2 per day), Decorative and Traditional Art, Fine Arts, Fine Arts Influenced by Literature, Finger Painting, Imaginative Realism, Impressionism Café, Inspired By Life, Landscape Painting, Realist Paintings About Water, Realist Traditional Art, SEA, Works On Paper and ♫.•°°African Art At heART°°•.♫ - 3/day - NO photography/digital artworks
Marion Chapman
Looks fabulous! I love how you have captured the angry weather.
Constance Widen replied 28 days ago
Marion thank you. It is an old photograph unfortunately, and does not do painting the humid wetness that I tried to paint justice.
Francesca Roma...
wonderful grey tones! bravissima, as always!
Constance Widen replied 27 days ago
Francesca thank you :-) The Monsoon rains always turned everything grey, but the storm coming in from the sea that day was quite incredible!
Linda Ridpath
beautiful, very turbulent!!! x
Constance Widen replied 27 days ago
Linda thank you :-) It was beautiful, what paint fails to convey is the incredible humidity however!
maria paterson
what a wild looking place
Constance Widen replied 27 days ago
It is Maria, and Monsoon rain is like having buckets of water poured over you! Thank you for commenting :-)
Mariaan Krog A...
Awesome Constance, lovely colours you used – it enhances the mood of your painting!
Constance Widen replied 27 days ago
Thank you sweet friend :-) Painting greys with pastel is quite difficult because of the huge variety of colours which are never quite what you need – they are either too brown, or too blue!!!!
tori yule
very beautiful and so sad
Constance Widen replied 27 days ago
Thank you Tori for seeing that – The Ghanaian coast was one of the main places where the slave trade took place long ago and the entire country still appears pervaded with that melancholy!
Colin Cartwright 29 days ago
Superb pastel. I particularly like the subtle grey rainy sky. And excellent movement of the sea.
Constance Widen replied 27 days ago
Thank you for that wonderful comment Colin :-) This was a painting I really enjoyed doing, I do need to see if I can retrieve it from the gallery to have it photographed properly though!
Colin Cartwright 27 days ago
Yes I’d like to see this in better focus, a really classy painting! Try and get hold of a professional digital SLR, such a nikon D60 (as I use). And try various settings until the result looks like the light and colour of your real paiting.
Constance Widen replied 25 days ago
Thank you for that cool advice Colin. Ted has the camera equipment and the painting should be winging its way over the Atlantic Ocean fairly soon so I will give it another try then :-)