Daybreak - A Plein Air Study ... Chasing the Sun by Marian Fortunati

	Daybreak 6"x8" Oil Study
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Weather in general varied during the days of our idyllic Channel Islands excursion.  We experienced low clouds, clear and balmy days, breezy and brisk afternoons and sometimes we had foggy weather during our five days.   We only had two nights on which we could have painted moonscapes because the clouds obscured the moon on most nights.  On this particular morning the sunrise was stunning.   I straggled out on deck, and tried to set up and paint as the dawn very quickly went from a pale dawn filled with greyish colors to a vivid sky as the sun edged closer to daybreak ... it was a race... I think the dawn won!

Pelicans perching on the rocks		A fellow painter has kayaked to the beach inside a nearby cave
Dorene is painting from the kayak. The Conception is in the background.

The pelicans and cormorants are the most common birds found on the islands.   One day we were graced by the beautiful sight of a bald eagle in flight.   What a joy.

I had been reading a book called "When The Killing Stops" by T.C. Boyle, so when I saw the bald eagle, I knew that it had been reintroduced to the Islands from Alaska.   The native bald eagles were killed off by drainage of DDT into the waters and subsequent weak shells.  Then the golden eagle took over the territory.  However, the golden eagle were preying on the island foxes and THEIR number were dwindling.  So the Park Service captured the goldens and returned them to the mainland and reintroduced the bald eagles hatched from their Alaskan cousins.

The antics and interrelationships of the Channel Islands flora and fauna is beyond fascinating.  What a joy to witness some them first-hand.

Each of us tried to capture studies of the island moods and beauty ... from the deck of the Conception, from the shore and even from the kayaks!

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