"on the beach at night"

(5x7)

During my little breaks from working today I was playing around with all my little pan sets of watercolors; "all" is not an exaggeration because I can't resist ingenious little kits and have several, including my most recent acquistion, a teeny Bijou box.
I had added a pan of Winsor & Newton cobalt violet to my Bijou, but have found it unusable: it stays so hard, and when I do manage to get a brushful, it's oily--too much binder not enough pigment? I found a halfpan of Schmincke cobalt violet, which works beautifully.
And that prompted me to get out my 24 full-pan set of Schmincke colors, which I bought (before they got so expensive! and) after seeing Laura's set on Laurelines.
I haven't used this set much because I've felt uncomfortable with the colors somehow ... the colors may all be warmer than what I customarily choose. I used the set to paint the boats above, a quick study, and found the color to be intense! (I have to learn how to make some mixes.) And the color becomes very wet and workable quickly, so you get a lot on the brush.
I'll have to use this set more.

From the constant companion of my high school years and still, always, a favorite, I've always a copy of Leaves of Grass nearby.

On The Beach At Night
Walt Whitman


ON the beach, at night,
Stands a child, with her father,
Watching the east, the autumn sky.

Up through the darkness,
While ravening clouds, the burial clouds, in black masses spreading,
Lower, sullen and fast, athwart and down the sky,
Amid a transparent clear belt of ether yet left in the east,
Ascends, large and calm, the lord-star Jupiter;
And nigh at hand, only a very little above,
Swim the delicate brothers, the Pleiades. 10


From the beach, the child, holding the hand of her father,
Those burial-clouds that lower, victorious, soon to devour all,
Watching, silently weeps.

Weep not, child,
Weep not, my darling,
With these kisses let me remove your tears;
The ravening clouds shall not long be victorious,
They shall not long possess the sky--shall devour the stars only in
apparition:
Jupiter shall emerge--be patient--watch again another night--the
Pleiades shall emerge,
They are immortal--all those stars, both silvery and golden, shall
shine out again, 20
The great stars and the little ones shall shine out again--they
endure;
The vast immortal suns, and the long-enduring pensive moons, shall
again shine.


Then, dearest child, mournest thou only for Jupiter?
Considerest thou alone the burial of the stars?

Something there is,
(With my lips soothing thee, adding, I whisper,
I give thee the first suggestion, the problem and indirection,)
Something there is more immortal even than the stars,
(Many the burials, many the days and nights, passing away,)
Something that shall endure longer even than lustrous Jupiter, 30
Longer than sun, or any revolving satellite,
Or the radiant brothers, the Pleiades.