Whitsunday Passage

Raining on and off here at Airlie Beach, and I headed down to the beach in between showers to do this little piece earlier this week. The plaque next to where was painting informs us that

‘On the 3rd of June 1770, Captain James Cook sailed the Endeavour through what is now known as the Whitsunday Passage. They sailed through on ‘Whit Sunday,’ marking the Sunday of the feast for the Christian festival Pentecost *. Captain Cook was inspired enough to name the passage as Whitsunday Passage, and the location as the Whitsunday Group of Islands. At that time, the international date line had not been established, so the day that the Whitsundays was discovered was actually a Monday. So really they should be called the “Whitmonday” islands!’

*..my note…at Pentecost, they all wear white vestments..

A clearly spectacular place is Airlie Beach……absolutely packed with tourists, and it doesn’t help that it’s also school hols! Very grey day, but that and the moisture in the air helped pull the colours in the painting together. A fun little daubing, and the first to be completed on the trip so far. There are several others on the go, but they are bigger, and not complete yet. Off to Townsville tomorrow, but only stopping overnight en route to Cairns,where I will stay longer and get some more painting done.😊
please note that this painting is shipped unframed.

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Hello, and welcome to my Bluethumb portal. I’m Jean David, and I am an artist and art teacher.

I have had a passion for painting and drawing all my life. These days, I will generally paint and draw anything that will be still enough for long enough to let me! I prefer to paint directly (ie with the actual subject matter in front of me, rather than a photo) either in the studio or out in the elements ‘en plein air’.

To me, a well executed drawing or painting (mine or anyone else’s) can convey a truth more eloquently, an emotion or a feeling of human experience more truthfully than any other form of expression. I can still remember the first time I saw a Leonardo drawing in a text book – I was literally transfixed at how the world could be viewed in a different way other than how I had been brought up. To me, the Leonardo drawings were able to get directly to the heart of the matter, and disregard what he could not be bothered to ‘see’.

Since my decision to become a full time artist some twenty something years ago, I have tirelessly pursued a goal to be able to just do it better. This has inevitable involved me going through a number of stages and phases, all of which have helped me acquire more experience and skills as I moved forward.

It has long been touted that in order for an artist to develop, he/she needs to travel and experience different environments, so the journey is a physical one as well, and my wife (Isix) and I have lived in Australia, England, Wales, The Netherlands , Hong Kong and France, taking in many other countries along the way, including Spain, Portugal, Italy, Scotland, Germany, Croatia, Russia, Sweden, Crete, Fiji, New Caledonia.