Evening sun, evening shadows - Fall. Looking east from the old Machon farm, aro

By James Evans
January 2022
16”x20”, acrylic on canvas board 
 
This was painted from a black and white photo owned by Glen Machon. 
The original (below) seems to have been taken from above the old Machon farm, before the road was made. It doesn’t show much information and appears to have been heavily masked and touched up by the photographer. 
 
I let my imagination fill in the gaps: I saw early autumn, the crops home, a fine evening with the shadows rising and the far shore brightly lit with the last of the day.  In the distance a schooner tacks up to Beach Point before bearing away with the beginning of the ebb, loaded maybe with produce or perhaps with barley for the breweries to slake the thirst of the miners of Sidney or the workers of Halifax. A red-sailed sloop catches the last of the evening breeze with topsail set, hoping to make the harbour before the ebb starts running strong. It might be a fisherman, a trader or maybe one of the crack yachts out of Charlottetown, Summerside or Souris that started racing together around this time.
 
Note from Artist - Jim Evans
I’ve been painting for about forty years, ever since I did a year of