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seascapes
I used to love the hustle and bustle of Ocean City, Maryland. The highrise condos on the beach, the smell of Thrashers fries with vinegar, the miniature golf courses block after block. Bar after bar competing for your attention and patronage with flashing lights and happy hour specials. It always felt exciting, and then a bit overwhelming.
These days, I’ll take my beach vacation on the bayside, keeping an eye on Ocean City from a safe distance.
Oil Pastels and Encaustic. 6x6 with solid wood floater frame.
On those scorching beach days when the sand feels like it’s on fire under your feet, you can always chill out your soles on the nearby dunes, which stay nice and cool.... just watch out for the burrs.
Oils with Beeswax and Oil Pastels over Encaustic. 6x6 with solid wood floater frame.
Being on the beach at night feels like experiencing the dark side of the moon—in the best way possible. It offers a completely different atmosphere compared to the daytime. The sand is cool, the beach is uncrowded, and the ocean appears untamed. Instead of lounging in swimsuits, everyone is bundled up in their hoodies.
I kind of love it.
Oils with Beeswax over Encaustic. 6x6 with solid wood floater frame.
Until I thought of myself as the sea
I used to separate good days from bad until I thought of myself as an ocean. I used to split times I felt strong from when I felt weak until I imagined myself as the sea. Calm and rocky, wild and soft, still and powerful and vast and more than any one thing. In the ocean it’s hard to divorce one mood from another, one wave from the next. Now, on my worst days, I think of how good life is too, how I still can greet joy while swimming through grief. How fragile strength feels. How I’m not any one thing in any one moment on any one day. I’m all of it and all of it is me.
~ Hannah Rosenberg
Encaustic Wax on Cradled Birch Board with White Oak Frame, 9 x 12.
On display and for sale at Paul’s Homewood Cafe
Imagine all of the people you meet in your life. There are so many. They come in like waves, trickling in and out with the tide. Some waves are much bigger and make more of an impact than others. Sometimes the waves bring with them things from deep in the bottom of the sea and they leave those things tossed on the shore. Imprints against the grains of sand that prove the waves had once been there, long after the tide recedes.
~Colleen Hoover
Encaustic Wax on Birch Board, 6 x 6, with solid wood floater frame
“And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive.
You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain.
When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in.
That’s what this storm’s all about.”
~Haruki Murakami
6x6 Encaustic Painting with Natural Wood Floater Frame
“When despair grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free. ”
~Wendell Berry
Encaustic Wax on Birch Board, 6 x 6, with solid wood floater frame
And sometimes when I move
at the edge of a greatness—
a lake or a sea or a mountainside—
my insignificance thrills me
and the largest of my sadnesses
dwindles smaller than the space
between grains of sand
and in that moment,
knowing my place,
comes a love so enormous
I can love anyone, anyone,
even myself.
~ Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
Encaustic Wax on Birch Board, 6 x 6, with solid wood floater frame
“The only way we can make the most of our lives is to make the most of our moments.
Today, wherever you are, decide to stay.
We can know the gifts that lie in the present only if we stay in it long enough to receive them.” ~ Cleo Wade
6x6 Encaustic Painting with Natural Wood Floater Frame
Sand fences may be small, but they are incredibly effective! Made from slender wooden slats and sturdy metal wire, these little heroes play a vital role in protecting our beautiful coastal dunes. They help slow down wind, capture sand, and support the growth of native plants, all while providing a welcoming habitat for various coastal wildlife. By keeping our coastlines safe, they also help mark off hazardous areas on the beach, even if it means the dare-deveil weather monger in each of us can’t get any closer to the big waves and the coastal weather events happening just on the other side.
Oils with Beeswax and Oil Pastels over Encaustic. 6x6 with solid wood floater frame.
Growing up, we had some wonderful family friends with a charming old house on the eastern shore, just a little bit outside Secretary, Maryland. I have such great memories of spending weekends there—walking to the country store for some Apple Jacks and having a blast on the secret staircase that connected the upstairs bedrooms to the kitchen.
But the best part of those weekends at Sunnyside was when I learned how to tie a chicken neck to a long stick and catch blue crabs right off the dock! We’d steam those crabs ourselves, and I'll always remember the time one of them jumped out of the pot and chased our family dog all over the yard! Such fun times!
Encaustic Wax on Birch Board, 6 x 6, with solid wood floater frame.
“she sits at the edge of the ocean just to think as she watches the waves break. she's done that more so as she's gotten older and the way life has thrown so much at her. because that's the place where shallow ends and deep begins.”
~ JmStorm
Encaustic Wax on Cradled Birch Board with White Oak Frame, 9 x 12
To Come Home to Yourself
May all that is unforgiven in you,
Be released.
May your fears yield
Their deepest tranquilities.
May all that is unlived in you,
Blossom into a future,
Graced with love.
~ John O’Donohue
Encaustic Wax on Cradled Birch Board with White Oak Frame, 6 x 12
“You may not have signed up for a hero’s journey, but the second you fell down, got your butt kicked, suffered a disappointment, screwed up, or felt your heart break, it started. It doesn’t matter whether we are ready for an emotional adventure—hurt happens. And it happens to every single one of us. Without exception. The only decision we get to make is what role we’ll play in our own lives: Do we want to write the story, or do we want to hand that power over to someone else? Choosing to write our own story means getting uncomfortable; it’s choosing courage over comfort.” ~ Brene Brown
Encaustic Wax on Birch Board, 6 x 6, with solid wood floater frame
“Follow the flawed, the real, the messy.
Follow the women who say it like it is, no filter, no glossing, no bull.
Follow those people who accept themselves, and you, as you are.
And leave the rest to edit their lives to perfection”
~Donna Ashworth
Encaustic Wax on Birch Board, 6 x 6, with solid wood floater frame
When I was 17 years old, I participated in one of many sailboat races on the Chesapeake Bay.
This one was an especially unique experience.
For one, it was a new boat to learn and new crew to meet. Secondly, I was sailing alongside my dad, a seasoned sailor if there ever was one, and I wanted to impress. And lastly, this boat race was held overnight.
Yup. Over Night.
The Governor’s Cup is the oldest and longest-running overnight sailboat race on the Chesapeake. It starts in Maryland’s current capital, Annapolis, and ends in Maryland’s first Capital, St. Mary’s City.
I had been on boats at night, but they were always tied safely up at the slip in the marina. Sailing at night was new territory. The night started off at breakneck speed - we were on a downwind run with choppy seas almost all night. It was dark, it was fast, it was chaotic….. and I was scared.
However, one moment of calm sticks with me to this day. It was around midnight, my dad was at the helm and I felt safe. He was teaching me how to be on ‘night watch’. The sky was ink black with dazzling stars, the Maryland shoreline silhouetted by distant cities, and the water in our wake glowed, thanks to bioluminescent algae.
It was a moment of magic.
Encaustic Wax, India Inks, Oils with Beeswax on 8”x8” cradled Birch Board panel.
Elizabeth Nook, 2018
Encaustic Paint and Oil Pastel on Cradled Birch Board, 8x8”
Wind, Sea, and Sand = Clarity
Least Bitterns are one of the smallest herons in the world, but unlike most herons, this bird clings to reeds and tall grass rather than wading through the shallow water. Their narrow body allows them to slip through the marsh undetected. Least Bitterns live in freshwater marshes along the southern Atlantic and Gulf Coasts.
Oil Pastels and Encaustic. 6x6 with solid wood floater frame.
The first time I was pulled over for speeding was on Route 126 while driving from Eugene, Oregon, to the beach. The police officer must have noticed that I was unfamiliar with the area. Instead of giving me a speeding ticket, he handed me a road map, circled his favorite spot along the coast, and offered to show me the way. I followed him, maintaining a safe speed, all the way to the Oregon Dunes, Heceta Beach, and the coastal town of Florence.
Details:
Original encaustic painting on cradled hardwood
Natural & non-toxic pigments and beeswax oils
6 × 6 × 2 inches
No framing needed
Signed on the back
Painted in 2025
Over the last 15 years, my mom, sister, and I have taken numerous mother/daughter trips to the beach during the off-season. We walk on the sand, enjoy good food, sip wine, and take a couple of days to simply be together. We’ve always had long conversations, catching up on topics like careers, promotions, family, friends, and boyfriends. More recently, our discussions have evolved to include husbands and kids, job changes, home renovations, and health. Witnessing a brisk morning on the beach with these two women fills me with gratitude for the lessons life has taught us and for the promise that a new day brings.
Encaustic Wax on Birch Board, 6 x 6, with solid wood floater frame.
To live in this world
you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.
~Mary Oliver
Encaustic Wax on Birch Board, 6 x 6, with solid wood floater frame.
I prefer to surround myself with people who
are messy and real. Look at nature, it’s wild
and messy and full of imperfections, but it is
also beautiful and magical. Give me people
like that. The wild souls who aren’t afraid to
be imperfect. Those are the ones who really
know how to embrace their magic.
~J D Lynn
Encaustic Wax on Cradled Birch Board with White Oak Frame, 8 x 8
“Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine
in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least
fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative
estimate, though I keep this from my children.
For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.
For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,
sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children. I am trying
to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real shithole, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful.”
~Maggie Smith
Encaustic Wax on Birch Board, 6 x 6, with solid wood floater frame
“i am running into a new year
and the old years blow back
like a wind
that i catch in my hair
like strong fingers like
all my old promises and
it will be hard to let go
of what i said to myself
about myself
when i was sixteen and
twenty-six and thirty-six
even thirty-six but
i am running into a new year
and i beg what i love and
i leave to forgive me”
~lucille clifton
6x6 Encaustic Painting with Natural Wood Floater Frame