The Harbor of the Black Madonna

A half-ass stormy, not so frigid moonlit but hazy night in a cozy but kinda cramped bay on the vast but land-locked Black Sea. Life is half-full of compromises…

All credit for what is by all accounts a breakthrough piece for me, goes to Alexandr Uzhakov a gifted and rigorously trained Russian painter who eight years ago, graced us with a tiny but precious collection of instructional videos (all titled ‘best lesson’) posted to YT. If you are like me and you watch one hour of him painting, and paint along with him, your skills will improve at a rate which should have turned me to tomato bisque. It feels like I’m dreaming.

Never has the representational felt so surreal.

Hence this gorgeous seascape.