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HippieLlama — The Outermost House by-nc-nd

Published: 2012-01-21 05:17:59 +0000 UTC; Views: 1512; Favourites: 19; Downloads: 60
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Description Day V of Seven Days of Stuff~

Annnnnd once again I almost forgot. I am a despicable human being.
And I also need a slightly better photo. Once again I'm painting things too big for scanners.

Anywho~
Here's another very recent painting (finished it this afternoon actually, eee ) that I did for my dad as his (somewhat belated) Christmas present.
For the last 10+ years, in addition to his job as an English professor, my dad has been working on a comprehensive biography (the first ever, actually) of the author and naturalist Henry Beston, who is most famous for his book The Outermost House, which is a sort of memoir Beston wrote about his time living in this house-- called the Fo'c'sle; nautical term-- on the beaches of Cape Cod. Beston spent time there for many many years until finally the house was washed away off the dunes in a storm; today, there's little left of the site. But I thought I'd paint my dad his own Outermost House, I guess. This is based on a photo of what the little dune shack looked like back in its days of glory on the National Seashore.
When Dad's book comes out, totally check it out, dudes.

Anyway, this was a landscape much more up my alley than, say, this--- --- but presented the challenge of how much "texture" the sand needed. I decided very little, and instead tried to make the house the center of attention, with sand dunes created by placement and shading instead.

Hope you guys like!
Acrylics on watercolor paper. December 2011-January 2012 (my first 2012 work, woohoo!!!!). HippieLlama.
MY ART IS NOT STOCK AND CANNOT BE USED OR ALTERED WITHOUT MY PERMISSION!!!! Thanks.
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Comments: 16

vampireFreak1015 [2012-04-16 15:54:37 +0000 UTC]

Wow, this is beautiful! It would make a pretty postcard
Dont know how I missed this one!

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HippieLlama In reply to vampireFreak1015 [2012-04-16 21:25:00 +0000 UTC]

Wow, thank you so much!!! It was a lot of fun to paint~ ocean scenes are fun
although painting waves (which I thankfully did not attempt here XD) is honestly, like, the hardest thing to me.
And thanks for the fave as well

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Miha3lla [2012-02-16 22:14:55 +0000 UTC]

interesting job I especially love the sky

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HippieLlama In reply to Miha3lla [2012-02-16 22:48:34 +0000 UTC]

Thanks so much!

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Kerixai [2012-01-29 00:28:03 +0000 UTC]

It's amazing how crisp this is! It feels really good to focus on the house with the perfect textured little bricks and straight straight roofing and wooden panels. The colours in the sky graduate really smoothly and the small amounts of detail you put into the sand was a really good idea, I think- keeping the attention drawn on the house while still expressing the substance of the dunes in a minimalistic way. It's a shame it gets blurry at the right though
wow, ten years is a long time, he must really admire Henry Beston!

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HippieLlama In reply to Kerixai [2012-01-29 01:24:26 +0000 UTC]

Thanks for such a thoughtful comment~! I don't even know what to say-- it probably made my day.
I know, it's been bugging me for days, but this is the best picture I have, since the painting is too large to scan XD
I guess so. Beston also lead a really interesting and complicated life, so he's a fun guy to study, I bet.

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mooing-duckerberry [2012-01-25 19:54:06 +0000 UTC]

This makes me happy because it reminds me of the old pioneer homes you stumble across in the desert where I'm from... except it's in better shape (much...much better shape).

I'm actually most impressed by the sky in this piece. How did you manage such a smooth color gradient? ...or did you just have a realllly big brush?

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HippieLlama In reply to mooing-duckerberry [2012-01-29 01:31:31 +0000 UTC]

Well, nowadays it's a sandbar 3 yards underwater and there's nothing left of the house. Not so good shape now
But in its former glory~!
I would really love to see those prairie houses sometime, actually. That aspect of history is so far removed from things on the east coast that I feel like it'd be really interesting to see.

Actually, I just added a lot of water to my acrylics and went over it a couple times. Come to think of it, a big brush would have been a really good idea.

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mooing-duckerberry In reply to HippieLlama [2012-01-30 20:38:29 +0000 UTC]

Oh. Global warming much? Poor little beach house!

The prarie desert houses are interesting, but a bit scary. They're all falling apart. The windows are broken in, the stairs are liable to collapse at any point in time, sections of the roof are usually gone, and the old wooden shingles go flying around whenever there is wind. A lot of them have been squatting shelters at some point, and they're all sitting out next to nothing else. Just desert for miles and miles. Sometimes there's an old corral nearby, with the fenceposts cracked by the heat and rotting away slowly. It's very sad to imagine people living there, and raising cattle, and keeping it maintained at all.

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HippieLlama In reply to mooing-duckerberry [2012-02-01 17:08:52 +0000 UTC]

A very bad winter storm back in the 70's or 80's. Apparently not all that uncommon in Cape Cod, but that one was one of the worst storms in ages and it wiped out a lot of things along that area of the coast (I think the old Coast Guard station from back then got whacked pretty good too).

Huh. That's really cool and kind of sad to think about. I have to agree, I can't really imagine living out on the prairie, with no one around for miles, just... living your life. I don't think I'd like it at all. I always wondered exactly what motivated people to go out there and start a life just like that.

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mooing-duckerberry In reply to HippieLlama [2012-02-15 20:00:48 +0000 UTC]

Woah... That must have been a crazy storm. I guess I don't know much about oceans and the like, but to move so much water is...yes.. crazy.
What did the old coast guard station look like?

Sometimes I think I would like the be a pioneer settler type. I guess it would be lonely, but living in a city is awfully lonely too, and there aren't horses to make it better. I dunno... is it worth giving up the people and the technologies and all of the modern things to live like that? I think it sounds nice, but that might just be me.

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HippieLlama In reply to mooing-duckerberry [2012-02-20 19:02:08 +0000 UTC]

It was. I think it was the biggest winter storm the cape had seen in, like... 50 years? Something like that. Scary stuff. Cool but scary.
I don't actually know. I've seen the new one, but the storm happened way before my time and photos are so hard to dig up... I should ask my dad, come to think of it. He probably has a million photos.

Hmmmm... I don't know that I could give up my technology. I can step away from it for certain amounts of time, but I can't imagine not having modern tech to an extent. Too many of the things I do or like revolve around the digital world.

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FARTYTREEFROG [2012-01-23 20:05:15 +0000 UTC]

sunny, secluded, sleepy ; the only sounds, those of the ocean on the shingle and the cry of sea birds.
brings back memories of picnics on the dunes and rock pools.--------------love it!

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HippieLlama In reply to FARTYTREEFROG [2012-01-25 17:03:45 +0000 UTC]

Thanks so much!

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CattBon [2012-01-21 21:44:17 +0000 UTC]

YOURRRRRRRRRRRR PAINTINGSSSSSSSSS *foams at the mouth*

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HippieLlama In reply to CattBon [2012-01-25 17:03:36 +0000 UTC]

Haha, thank you so much

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