All Eight: A Peek Behind the Series

“All Eight” is a painting series about Navy Rowing, and will be available online at shop.easelonstribling.com at 12 est on October 15, 2025.

Read the behind the scenes below, or scroll to the very bottom for a full preview of the work!

An Overview of the Series

“All Eight” focuses on the quiet, everyday moments within the Navy Rowing community: the synchronized teamwork, the freezing mornings, the small rituals before and after practice.

Like much of my work with Easel on Stribling, it’s less about the highlight reels and more about the steady dedication that defines this sport.

A note on voice:

II often feel like a series happens through me. I never fully know where it will lead, but I try to stay open to the process.

You’ll notice I sometimes write as if the series itself were in charge. And honestly, I think it is.
Sound a little nuts? Go with it. 😉

“we row at dawn” 12”x16” gouache on board

Why?

Easel on Stribling is rooted in the everyman (and everywoman) experience—moments any midshipman can relate to. Shared experiences build empathy and connection, which is at the heart of why I paint.

When I created the coffee-table book A Midshipman’s Journey, I intentionally avoided individual sports to keep the stories universal. But after the book’s release, I gave myself permission to explore them.

Why start with sailing (2023) and rowing (2025)?
Because the impressionist in me can’t resist boats and light. (And alumni requests didn’t hurt!)

And maybe I was wrong…

Even within a specific sport, familiar themes emerged: intimacy, ritual, community, discipline, small moments. It has me thinking my initial thesis was wrong. Maybe those moments never needed to be left out… they always find their way in.

How it Started: Research

Since I live and work in Florida, I rely on reference photos I can take myself. With help from generous alumni, I joined the men’s team on the water during Nationals prep in May 2024. Overcast skies made the light tricky but surprisingly rich.

Then I stumbled on a forgotten roll of photos from 2007: shots of the women’s team on a frigid, beautifully lit morning. It felt like a sign to move forward with this series.

“If I waited for perfect preparation, I’d never start. There’s always more to make, and that’s the exciting part.”

Creative Exploration

While finishing my previous series, Morning Colors, I began using flat background colors as part of the subject itself. I carried that approach into All Eight to elevate overcast photos with softer light.

Misty days can yield beautiful, muted colors, but with my painting approach, they’re trickier to balance. Using solid color fields simplified the scenes and kept the focus on rhythm and form.

A “Morning Colors” painting that shows the background color approach I pulled into this series. No pun intended.

I started with that idea for a grouping of paintings in this series. This one began with a gray-blue ground and I loved leaving out any horizon line or background details as it developed.

Saved Round: Accidental Breakthrough

After declaring the series “complete,” a conversation with an alumnus sparked new ideas. I revisited dockside moments, which were less ideal in color, but rich in story. I experimented with linen panels instead of white-primed ones.

Leaving parts of the linen bare let the natural gray-brown tone act as a neutral base. It echoed the dock and water perfectly. I’d explored this in larger, non-USNA works but had never applied it to smaller narrative pieces—it felt like a revelation.

Things clicked when I drew in the dock… and left it like that.

a 5 foot painting where the raw canvas has a moment from my other painting life (www.kristincronic.com)

Staying Open to the Process…

As I painted, I began leaning more on line, that elemental part of drawing I tend to overlook as a shape-driven painter. (Funny, since I teach drawing at a local university!)

This sub-series on clear-primed linen focused on line first, color second. Some paintings are tightly developed; others just hint with color. I loved the looseness of those “notes of color,” especially in pieces like Creek Stories (16 × 20 in., oil on linen).

Allowing the neutral linen color to be the base for this sub-series, I relied a lot more on the “line” than “shapes” (my usual instinct). In this painting of “Catch,” I loved what happened when the line defined the figure.

Leaving some areas as just notes of color ended up feeling really good for some of these pieces. “Creek Stories” 16”x20” oil on linen

A Moment for sketches

Two colored-pencil drawings found their way into the series. (A happy tangent!) During a pause throughout the creation of this series, I illustrated for Old Fox Books (the most magical bookstore!) and rediscovered the joy of drawing with colored pencil.

An image that wasn’t working as a painting became a drawing I loved. There are only two for now, but I expect to explore this more as Easel on Stribling evolves.

Thanks for following my rabbit holes… there are plenty!

Artist Influences

No artist creates in a vacuum. I look at a lot of art, and am constantly inspired by others. Sometimes I consciously pay tribute, sometimes I realize it later.

For example, some of those linen based pieces reminded me of Morag Caister, whose figures fascinate me endlessly.

Oars (After Jim Drouet) (18 × 24 in., oil on canvas) was directly influenced by Drouet’s fragmented figures and warm palettes that merge into the background. His approach shaped my early experiments, and though I moved away from it later, traces remain throughout.