Bay of Islands 1930

Franklin Carmichael made this landscape, Bay of Islands, sometime in his career, using I’d guess watercolour and maybe some gouache. I love how the water and land are built up with these short, almost choppy strokes. You can really see the process, the way he layered the colors to create the textures of the rocks and the movement of the water. It's cool how Carmichael uses these soft, creamy colors—pale yellows, blues, and greens. It’s not super realistic, but it’s got this dreamy, almost abstracted feel to it. Take a look at the way he's rendered the clouds, they're not just white blobs, they're like little pillows of color. And then there's the dark, wavy lines in the water, almost like a woodcut, that add this sense of depth and movement. Carmichael's work reminds me a bit of Marsden Hartley, another painter who was into landscapes but with this added layer of emotional expression. I love how both artists aren’t just trying to copy nature, but use it as a starting point to express something deeper. It's less about what you see and more about how you feel.