"Hanauma Bay Tondo"

“Hanauma Bay Tondo” by Bill Braden

There is an encompassing quality about painting in a circle – nothing is left in a corner, everything is within the ring.  Hanauma Bay has an almost circular ridgeline around it – the deep ocean of the Kaiwi Coastline is the only break in this ancient crater rim.  Having painted this view as first, a wide panorama for the City and County of Honolulu commissioned “Best Beaches of Hawaii” series and then as a taller, more squarish version for the entrance feature at the Hanauma Bay Visitors’ Center, we were now ready for this more intimate variation. The symphony of colors and shapes is what makes the view of Hanauma Bay Nature Preserve from its rim one of our favorite themes.  The hot oxidizing red earthtones contrasts the cool blues and turquoises of the ocean, which opens onto the gradually deepening blues of the sky’s zenith.  The water also shifts from the aggregate blues and sandy tans of the shallows within the reef to the deeper aquas beyond the reef.  Outside of the bay, the deep water changes into dark indigo blue.  However these are not simple color shifts, the vegetation greens punctuate the earth reds and the umber reef play counterpoint. The warm off-white clouds also temper those cool ceruleans and cobalt blues of the sky. The whites of the breaking waves and the blacks of the foreground stark branches keep up the steady yet textured rhythm of nature's breath.