Watch Me Paint has moved! The new URL is:
http://watchmepaint.bangordailynews.com/
Thursday, June 11, 2015
Tuesday, June 9, 2015
Welcome to the neighborhood
One of my favorite subjects for blogging has been the food we've eaten in our workshops. Here, doughnuts from the Willow Bake Shoppe, now just down the road from me. |
While I was in mid-Hudson, I got a note from a student suggesting
I send my blog link to the Bangor Daily
News. I’d been a full-time resident of Maine for exactly five days, three
of them spent back in New York painting at Olana and the Catskills. I was more
than mildly surprised at their interest. If all goes well, tomorrow my blog
will appear on their portal rather than on Blogger, where it’s been since 2007.
Then there are my favorite places. Here, Camden Harbor. |
One of my painting students is branding guru Brad VanAuken.
He once told me I should blog regularly, or forget about blogging at all. On
his advice I started posting every weekday. That’s improved my readership, but
it’s also helped me develop an economical writing style, one that doesn’t take
over my entire day.
It would be fun to kick off this new blog with something
exciting like a painting festival. But the flip side is that I have time this week to work on the transfer. I still have a lot of work to do before I hit
the road, exciting stuff like going to the dump for the first time, figuring
out my mailbox question, and registering my car.
I love writing about the technique of painting. This was a how-to for making canvases. |
What will I write about on this new platform? The same stuff
I already do, I imagine: plein air painting, art history, an occasional digression
into social commentary. I hope you come along for the ride, dear friends.
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As always, painting with friends is the most important thing. |
Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me on the Schoodic Peninsula
in beautiful Acadia National Park in August 2015. Click here for more
information on my Maine workshops! Download a
brochure here.
Monday, June 8, 2015
Traveling truths
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Catskills over Athens, NY, 8X6, oil on canvasboard, Carol L. Douglas. The grass is courtesy of a park worker who was string-trimming nearby. Not to worry; it will pick off when the painting is dry. |
When Nancy Woogen and I were painting
at North –South Lake on Thursday, a woman glided past us in her kayak. “Oh,
you’re painters!” she exclaimed. “May I join you?”
Turns out she has been looking for her tribe. I introduced
her to my pal Jamie Williams Grossman, chair of Lower Hudson Valley Plein Air
Painters. We arranged to meet the following day at Site #9 on the Hudson River Art Trail, also
known as Promenade Hill Park in Hudson, NY.
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A tug approaching the Athens-Hudson Lighthouse in the Hudson River. |
Like many upstate New York towns, Hudson went into decline
after its primary industry was closed down, but its industry wasn’t the usual
paper or steel mill. For a century, Hudson was notorious
for vice. Its red-light district included 50 bars, 15 whorehouses, two major
illegal horse gambling rooms and a big-stakes floating crap game—all in a
community of just a few thousand people. A series of high-profile raids in 1951
put an end to that. Hudson slumped into the familiar pattern of decay.
Power lines crossing the Hudson, 8X6, oil on canvasboard, Carol L. Douglas. |
It’s been gentrified since my last visit, driven into the
inexorable real-estate maw of New York City. This is great for the landowners
of Columbia County, and not so good for those who need to buy or rent houses.
I talked to an artist who commutes to Manhattan and who is
considering relocating to Troy, farther upriver. “Two hours on the train I can
handle,” she said. “But two and a half is just too much.” Having done my
time commuting from Rochester to Manhattan, I understand.
I painted a half-day at Promenade Hill, and decided to start
the trek back to Rockport, ME, where my commute is, well, nothing at all.
Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me on the Schoodic
Peninsula in beautiful Acadia National Park in August 2015. Click here for more
information on my Maine workshops! Download a brochure here.
Friday, June 5, 2015
I flub where giants walked
Roundtop from North-South Lake, 8X10, Carol L. Douglas |
Located on a flat outcropping of the Catskill Escarpment at an elevation of
2250 feet, North-South Lake was once split by an earthen causeway, now gone. A
spit of land projects into the lake at the stub of the old causeway. This was the site of
one of the seminal Hudson River School paintings, Thomas Cole’s Lake with Dead Trees (Catskill).
Jamie Grossman wearing painting mittens made by Jeanne Demotses. It's been awfully cold for the first week of June. |
Lake with Dead Trees
(Catskill) was one of three Cole landscapes exhibited in 1825 at
William Coleman's frame shop in New York City. Priced at $25 each, they attracted the notice of Colonel John Trumbull, president of the
Academy of Fine Arts. He purchased Kaaterskill
Upper Fall, Catskill Mountains, which is now lost.
He then encouraged writer William Dunlap to buy Lake with Dead
Trees (Catskill) and artist Asher B. Durand to buy View of Fort Putnam, also now lost. All three paintings
were exhibited at the New York American Academy of Fine Arts later that year,
launching Cole’s career and establishing the Catskills as the center of American
landscape painting for a generation.
Beaver detritus can assume some fantastical shapes. |
Even without this background, that spit of land is a wonderful microcosm of nature. It is lined with beaver-gnawed trees, marshy on one side and rocky on the other. Last year I watched a turtle laying its
eggs here. Moments after I left, two friends photographed a bear swimming where the causeway had been.
Laurel grove, 6X8, Carol L. Douglas. No focal point, no color separation. What a mess. |
It's a pity that my exhaustion and rustiness finally caught up with me in this paradise of paradise, and I painted a truly awful painting (above).
Yesterday dawned damp and cold, despite the NWS’ assurances to the contrary. North-South Lake was completely buried in fog, and I decided to paint a grove of laurels in the mist. Happily—or otherwise—it cleared halfway through. Sometimes it’s a mistake to chase the light, and sometimes it’s a mistake to follow through with an idea that has vanished. I made the latter mistake.
Yesterday dawned damp and cold, despite the NWS’ assurances to the contrary. North-South Lake was completely buried in fog, and I decided to paint a grove of laurels in the mist. Happily—or otherwise—it cleared halfway through. Sometimes it’s a mistake to chase the light, and sometimes it’s a mistake to follow through with an idea that has vanished. I made the latter mistake.
A damp morning has its consolations. |
I’m not particularly ashamed of my failures; they’re part of the
process. I never wipe them out because they teach me a lot. Including,
sometimes, that they aren’t exactly failures, but rather signposts to a new
direction.
Meanwhile, most of our fellow painters left, driven away by the
biting cold and lack of light. It was down to me and Nancy Woogen.
You can take the retired teacher out of the classroom, but you can't take the classroom out of the teacher. Nancy Woogen talking to a visiting fourth grade class. |
By mid-afternoon, it had cleared, and I was able to paint
the iconic view of Round Top painted by Cole and Jasper
Francis Cropsey. This painting built up fast, which was a good thing, because the warmth and sun left equally quickly.
Across North-South Lake, 8X10, Carol L.Douglas |
One last try—a stand of trees across the shore. By the time
we finished, the biting cold was back, and we were hungry. But one out of three still ain’t bad.
Let me know if
you’re interested in painting with me on the Schoodic Peninsula in beautiful
Acadia National Park in August 2015. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops! Download a brochure here.
Thursday, June 4, 2015
Friends
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Olana Overlook, 6X8, Carol L. Douglas |
Painting at a site for the first time is kind of like dating
in middle school—you’re drawn to flash. It takes a while to see the quality in the
quieter subjects. This is the third retreat I’ve painted at Olana. I’ve gotten
the big vistas out of the way and am starting to be drawn to deeper, more
intimate views.
Compared to my mid-Hudson pals, I’m still at a disadvantage.
“That’s a lovely little tree,” I said to Jamie Grossman.
“I know,” she answered. “I’ve painted it three times.”
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Garden Lane, Olana, 8X10, Carol L. Douglas |
In July, I’ll be back at Olana for the Fourth
Annual Plein Air Paint Out and Festival. In some ways, yesterday’s painting
was reconnaissance.
Since I am tired and rusty, I figured that getting all my
gear down to mid-Hudson and actually set up would count as success. Actually
painting anything would be a bonus. I
opened the cooler in which I keep my paints—only to find that I’d brought my
framing tools instead.
You can improvise a lot in painting, but paints are a necessity.
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Coreopsis, 8X10, Carol L. Douglas. |
Immediately several people jumped forward to offer me
theirs. Turns out I had enough loose paint on my palette for the day. But it’s heartwarming
to know I have such good friends.
Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me on the Schoodic Peninsula in beautiful Acadia National Park in August 2015. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops! Download a brochure here.
Wednesday, June 3, 2015
Oh, happy day!
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Overlook at Olana, 9X12, by Carol L. Douglas |
There is a limit to the mileage you can get out of caffeine
and vitamins, and although I haven’t hit it yet, I sense the end is near. And
yet today is one of the maddest, gladdest days of my painting year and it’s
dawning spectacularly. This is the day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice
and be glad in it.
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Sketch for south façade of the main house at Olana, Frederic Edwin Church, c. 1870, watercolor,
ink and graphite on paper.
|
Every year, the chapters of New York Plein Air Painters
congregate at Olana for a one-day paintout and picnic lunch. Olana is the
palatial home of Hudson River School painter Frederic Church. It overlooks the
Hudson, with fantastic vistas in every direction.
Olana is not just your typical rich man’s confection of
Victorian whimsy. It was designed by architect Calvert Vaux but the influence
of the artist is apparent everywhere.
Painting at Olana with Nancy Woogen, right. |
In the fall of 1869 Frederic and Isabel Church returned
from an 18-month-long trip to Europe and the Middle East. Impressed by
the architecture they saw in Beirut, Jerusalem and Damascus, they
envisioned a home that would incorporate Moorish elements.
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The facade at Olana. |
As many times as I’ve looked at the house, it never fully
registered to me that the cornices were not tiled, but stenciled. Church
translated the tile work he saw in Islamic mosques into stencil patterns, which
he used inside and out. Hundreds of his pencil and oil sketches for them survive.
Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me on the Schoodic Peninsula
in beautiful Acadia National Park in August 2015. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops! Download a brochure here.
Tuesday, June 2, 2015
You’ve got mail
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Hard to see how one can have a mailbox here. Where does it go? |
Since my husband had already field-tested my router in
Rochester, setting up my internet connection was basically plug-and-play. That was a pleasant surprise for my overtired
brain, which was expecting the usual scramble of crossed wires and endless
holding for technical support.
The house is 125 years old, and the center of this bedroom floor has never been finished. I'm afraid I might break with tradition, though. |
My New Year’s resolution was to unsubscribe from every email
advertising list, and I kept it. Still, there were 444 messages in my inbox
when I got back on line. Amid the detritus, I found this one about my workshop: “I'm interested
in joining you in Maine but the form I have has your Rochester address on it
and from following your blog I know you’re moving. Where should I mail
it?”
I always was a sucker for a cute wood stove. |
This has me flummoxed. There is no mailbox at this house,
and my pal from West Rockport told me she doesn’t have one, either. I’d just
buy one and put it up, but there’s a sidewalk running along the curb. I can’t
see any way a person in a mail truck can lean over far enough to shove the mail
in a box. Nor am I keen on going into town every day to get my mail.
This morning’s project is to sort out the mailbox issue and to
ponder a life where it’s easier to get email than physical mail.
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My pizza-baking daughter is coming to visit later this month. I may not have my studio set up, but I'm ready for her! |
This afternoon I head down the road to Olana for the annual New
York Plein Air Painters retreat and a nice chin-wag with my pal Jamie Williams
Grossman. That beats the heck out of setting up housekeeping any day. I know
where my paints are. If I can find my clean clothes, I’m golden.
Let me know if
you’re interested in painting with me on the Schoodic Peninsula in beautiful Acadia
National Park in August 2015. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops! Download a brochure here.
Addendum: The post office supervisor is going to check this out and then get back to me. In the meantime, they're holding my mail for pickup. They couldn't be nicer folks.
Addendum: The post office supervisor is going to check this out and then get back to me. In the meantime, they're holding my mail for pickup. They couldn't be nicer folks.
Monday, June 1, 2015
Receiving angels
My studio. Clifford doesn't stay here but I have to remove some doors before he can be moved. Wish you were here. |
Since Friday, I’ve loaded half my earthly belongings on a 16’
rental truck, hooked my Prius up to it on a trailer, driven a gazillion miles,
unloaded the truck and trailer and returned it to a rental center in
Waterville, ME. It’s no surprise I’m moving slowly this morning.
The only way to live like a vagabond is to organize the hell
out of your life, and that’s what I usually do. When you’re 25 and moving into
your first home, you have a strong back and lots of young friends. When you’re
my age, you have a weak back and you realize, sadly, that your friends are all in
the same boat.
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My business life, still shrink-wrapped. |
But I have a husband and children, and they have friends,
and the combination got that truck loaded and out of Rochester. The problem was
on the Maine side, where it was down to me and a crusty old codger who busted
up his back as a stone mason. It took us five hours of brutal hard work to get the heavy stuff off the truck and into either the studio or the garage.
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That's my modem and router. I decided I needed coffee before I got it working, which is why this is late. Coffee, food, internet: McDonald's. |
When I suggested he ride to Waterville with me to turn in the truck, he told me he was going home and taking a nap instead. “You can’t get
they-ah from he-ah,” he told me in his broadest Maine accent.
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This, my friends, is about a thousand pounds of paper and steel. Unloaded by the crusty old codger and me. Youth and talent are no match for old age and treachery. |
I can’t back the Prius off the trailer without a spotter. It
was a Sunday, the rental place was locked up tight, and the only people around
were hanging out the windows of the bar across the street.
“Just gun it and pray like mad,” my friend had suggested as
he drove away.
I sloshed around in the mud, disconnected my car, pulled out
the ramps, checked to make sure everything was neat. As I was about to take a
deep breath and follow his advice, an old beater driven by a young gearhead pulled into the lot.
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It's a darn good thing I pulled out my stuff for Olana before I left Rochester. |
“You work here?” I asked him. Well, he didn’t, not exactly,
but he guided me off the ramp anyway.
‘Lean less on your own understanding and more on God’s
provision’ is something I give lip service to, but am not very good at. But,
boy, it’s nice when it works.
Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me on the Schoodic Peninsula in beautiful Acadia National Park in August 2015. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops! Download a brochure here.
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