Attacked by Pirates and Out

Today's painting, fail. Who cares?

I knew today would be chaotic at Camden harbor but I like chaos—in metered doses—and I’ve painted enough good paintings this week to spend the day schmoozing on the dock. I hadn’t expected to paint through cannon fire, however. Frankly, my painting shows the distractions. Still, it's been a tremendous blessing and privilege to paint here, and I'm profoundly grateful for it.

What I was looking at was often on the other side of a crowd, but what can you do? They were having a great time!

My father loved Maine, painting, and sailing wooden boats. Several times this week when I signed my paintings I thought of how amazed and happy he would have been to see his daughter getting paid to stand on a dock in Maine, painting wooden boats. Here’s to you, Dad. Thanks for teaching me to paint and draw and sail. Funny how things come around full circle, isn’t it?

And sometimes I couldn't even get to my easel.

I’m still smiling at Harbor Master Steven J. Pixley reading Robert Service’s The Cremation of Sam McGee while we did our two-hour Quick Draw.

There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold…

Takes me back, that. There just isn’t enough poetry recited in America these days.

Windjammer Festival chair Emily Lusher with the Build-a-Boat trophies, made of caulk tubes. Is that great, or what?

The two little boys in the foreground went out with toy pistol and cutlass to protect Camden harbor from pirates. Their courage flagged slightly when the cannons started booming.

And the little girl in the pink tank top kept piping "Ahoy, mate!" to the pirate as he handled the boat lines.

(This was Day Seven of Camden Plein Air, Camden Falls Gallery’s annual paint-out and wet paint auction. From Monday, August 26 through Monday, September 2 participating artists from around New England and the mid-Atlantic region are painting picturesque Camden Harbor and the surrounding area. New work produced during this event will be displayed in the Camden Falls Gallery throughout the week, and a Wet Paint Auction will be held on Saturday, September 7 to benefit four local non-profit organizations.)

Join me in October, 2013 at Lakewatch Manor—which is selling out fast—or let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in 2014. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!

Painting as a spectator sport

A squall rolled through Camden last night and people put their sails up to dry. I begged the owner of this gaff-rigged boat to not go out until I was done painting. He was a kind man; he acquiesced... and then bought the painting.

Painting as a spectator sport—who knew such a thing was even possible? It’s 9 PM and I’m just getting in for the evening, so instead of words, I’m giving you a photo essay.

Would you find this crowd disconcerting? Nah, not me either. But the harbormaster doing a countdown to the first brush stroke over the loudspeaker... that was a mite disconcerting. If he'd fired a starter gun, I'd have fallen in the harbor.

Howard Gallagher from Camden Falls Gallery auctioning off the quick-draw paintings. I can't say enough good things about the gallery's professional-yet-relaxed management of this event.

Because I'd used up my 8X10 frame in the morning, I had to paint 6X8 for the quick-draw. That's really small for me, and I was a little concerned it was going nowhere. But the Bowsprit of the Nathaniel Bowditch turned out just fine for such a wee painting, and the buyer seemed thrilled.

There's a Build-a-Boat competition going on during the festival. If I weren't painting, I'd be very tempted to compete.

(This was Day Six of Camden Plein Air, Camden Falls Gallery’s annual paint-out and wet paint auction. From Monday, August 26 through Monday, September 2 participating artists from around New England and the mid-Atlantic region are painting picturesque Camden Harbor and the surrounding area. New work produced during this event will be displayed in the Camden Falls Gallery throughout the week, and a Wet Paint Auction will be held on Saturday, September 7 to benefit four local non-profit organizations.)

By evening it was misty and cool. The rain held out exactly long enough to finish the live auction.

Join me in October, 2013 at Lakewatch Manor—which is selling out fast—or let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in 2014. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!

What a difference a day makes!

A lousy photo of a decent painting of the schooner Mercantile.

Yesterday I posted that I was unhappy with the design of my Mt. Battie painting, and hoped to fix it by playing with the light. (I was hoping I could break the rigid horizontal at the bottom by making the contrast with the water almost non-existent.) My student Carol Thiel asked, “Why don’t you put some boats in the foreground to break up that line?” That was a far more intelligent suggestion than trying to force the composition. I did it and it worked fine, and now I have an iconic Camden painting, of the library, a steeple, Mount Battie, and some boats—and no need to take a circular saw to the board.

Alison painting on a small canvas.

But that required waiting for the tide to rise. In the morning, I painted the schooner Mercantile at anchor. I loved Old Glory’s reflection in the water, and I walked around the harbor trying to find the best angle. I settled on painting from a floating dock. This is the easiest place from which to paint but it is hard on the legs. The docks rock constantly. So after five hours or so, I retreated back up to dry land.

Camden harbor with correction.

There I was happily surprised by my friend Alison Hill, a painter from Monhegan. She set up near me with an enormous jute canvas. In less than an hour she’d limned out a lovely painting of the harbor, and we’d had a great chat.

A little tailgate critique. Nice, nice group of artists.

Tomorrow, I have choices—a farmer’s market or the Mighty Megunticook?

Join me in October, 2013 at Lakewatch Manor—which is selling out fast—or let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in 2014. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!

Camden Plein Air, 2013

A Fitz Henry Lane Kind of Day at Camden Harbor, oil on canvas, 12X9

On Sunday I zoom back to Maine to participate in the Camden Plein Air Paint-Out and Wet Paint Auction being sponsored by Camden Falls Gallery.

Over 20 artists will be painting en plein air in and around Camden from Monday, August 26 to Monday, September 2, Labor Day. A live auction will be held at the Bok Amphitheatre in Camden Harbor Park (behind the public library) on Saturday, September 7 from 6:30-7:30 pm, following a reception from 5:30-6:30 pm. Proceeds will benefit the Camden Windjammer Festival, Camden Public Library, and Penobscot Marine Museum.

This year's participating artists include: Tania Amazeen-Jones, Bill Barton, Todd Bonita, Paul Bonneau, Lee Boynton, Ian Bruce, Allen Bunker, Beaman Cole, Dan Corey, Alison Dibble, F. Michael Dorsey, Stephan Giannini, Eric Glass, Alison Hill, Kirk McBride, Aline Ordman, Colin Page, Judith Schuppien, Diane Scott, Janet Sutherland, Michael Vermette, and little ol’ me.

Because I won’t be teaching, I will do my best to post my day’s painting live each day.

Join us in October, 2013 at Lakewatch Manor—which is selling out fast—or let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in 2014. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!

That "how-to" I didn't do yesterday...

Megunticook River at Camden, ME, 9X12, oil on canvas, by little ol' me.

Yesterday I intended to write about how I do field sketches, but distracted myself with raving about a most-excellent new student. Today, then, I get down to business. This is my method of producing a relatively-quick, finished field study with a minimum of “flailing around,” as my pal Brad Marshall so memorably termed it.

My first step is a value study. Whether I do this with charcoal, greyscale markers, or pencil is immaterial—if the value structure doesn’t work, the painting won’t work. 

A value study can be done in charcoal, with greyscale markers, or in pencil.

As I mentioned yesterday, I decided to decompress the center of the painting and omit a wall that encroached on the view from the left, and both—in the end—proved to be the lesser choices. I can’t call those highly-subjective decisions “wrong,” but I did change my mind halfway through.

The Megunticook River wending its way through Camden's old buildings. Isn't it beautiful?

 My next step was to draw the picture on my canvas. This is never simply a question of transferring my rough value sketch; nor is it a finished drawing into which I paint. What I do is a carefully-measured map of the future painting. I find this particularly useful when painting architecture, where measurement matters a great deal. I generally do this drawing with a watercolor pencil. I can erase to my heart’s content with water, but when I finally start painting in oil the drawing is locked into the bottom layer.

Not a transfer of my value study; not a "drawing" per se. A map for the finished painting.

 From there, I blocked in the big shapes, paying attention to preserving the values of my sketch, and working (generally) from dark to light. This is especially important if you plan to take more than a few hours to do a painting, because it allows you to paint through significant changes in lighting.

I say “big shapes,” but while I focus on these, I do not obliterate all the drawing I did earlier.

It was upon reaching this degree of blocking that I realized how little I liked this scene without the wall on the left pushing in against it. Putting it in over wet paint (without a drawing) resulted in it being somewhat vague compared to the rest of the painting, but I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. (Whenever I do something like this, I amuse myself by speculating on what art historians might adduce as a ‘meaning’ of my painterly screw-ups.)

I plan to repaint this scene next week, when I participate in Camden Falls Gallery’s Plein Air Wet Paint Auction. But more on that tomorrow.

Join us in October, 2013 at Lakewatch Manor—which is selling out fast—or let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in 2014. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!

Painting side by side with a beginner, you learn things

My painting (left), my student's painting (right).

I had the opportunity this week to paint side-by-side with a student. He has painted exactly three observational pieces in his life, all under my tutelage. However, as a lifelong builder, he actually has pretty decent drawing chops; he just hasn’t dignified his sketching by calling it art.

The Megunticook River runs beneath and between old mill buildings in Camden, ME.

I set out to do a how-to post about my technique for developing a field sketch. He just happened to be standing next to me, or so I thought.

The Megunticook River runs underneath and around old mill buildings in downtown Camden, Me. I loved the light on the water and the shimmering reflections of the white buildings in the background. However, I felt that it would be better to decompress the gap between the far buildings and remove the building that squeezed the scene down from the left. My student chose to represent the scene exactly as he saw it. About halfway through the painting, I realized that my editorial changes—intended to let the scene “breathe”—had in fact robbed it of its idiosyncratic charm. I would not have realized this had I not been looking at his painting taking shape next to mine.

Working a pretty narrow view, in a pretty narrow space.

The owner of the business next door stopped by several times to see what we were doing. He raved about this man’s painting. But my student—like so many of us—couldn’t hear that praise as genuine, or doesn’t understand how truly gifted he is to be able to do this on the third try. 

His palette, acrylics.

“Someday, they’ll be talking about you as the new Grandma Moses, and I’ll be a footnote in your personal history,” I told him.

His finished painting. 

Sometimes you need to see a painting dignified with a frame; it is as if it puts on its tuxedo and is ready to perform. So I tossed his painting in a frame while I framed mine. I think he suddenly realized just how good it is and was shocked.

Later this week, I'll post my step-by-step instructions. After all, technique is important; the joy of painting... well, that is something far greater.

Join us in October, 2013 at Lakewatch Manor—which is selling out fast—or let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in 2014. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!

"24 Reasons Everyone Should See Maine Before They Die" includes a lot of mid-coast Maine

Back in Rochester, I’m a bit dazed from an exceptionally long day of travel yesterday. I did find myself perking up tremendously from this: “24 Reasons Everyone Should See Maine Before They Die.” I’ve been to almost every one of these places, and they’re iconic and beautiful. Rather more surprising is how many of them are on my shortlist of places to paint on my workshop:

Owl’s Head Lighthouse

I painted this as a demo for my July workshop and framed it Monday before leaving Maine. How fine it looks in an elegant black frame:

Owl's Head Light, 8X10, oil on canvas, by little ol' me. Available.

Marshall Point Lighthouse

Every time I’m there, someone tells me about Forrest Gump, but I’m probably the last remaining American who hasn’t seen it. I’ve never painted the lighthouse, but the setting is one of my favorite spots to paint in mid-coast Maine.

Sunset at Marshall's Point, 8X6, oil on canvas, by little ol' me. Private collection.

Camden

Camden harbor is never boring, with its big fleet of wooden schooners moving in and out of the harbor. There are also gazillionaires’ yachts, which aren’t as lovely but are equally entertaining. But I probably love the old dinghies and modest dories as much as anything—certainly for painting.

Monhegan

Monhegan has more artists per square inch than any other place in Maine. Despite that, it’s still charming and still beautiful.

If I were in charge of this list, I’d ditch Freeport, because I’m not much of a shopper. I’d add in Eastport (with its ethereal ghostliness) and Castine (about which I’ll write tomorrow).

However, it’s pretty amazing that a sixth of the places they chose as iconic are on my Maine workshop itinerary, isn’t it?

Join us in October, 2013 at Lakewatch Manor—which is selling out fast—or let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in 2014. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!

How to recover from a fail

Pamela's lovely painting of Camden harbor. Yes, the sheds across the harbor are completely cockamamie.

Nobody goes to a painting workshop expecting to do brilliant work, but my students have been painting at a high level. But into each life come a few tough painting days, and today was one of them.

Pamela's sketch for the above. Her first try on canvas lost this lovely composition.

Camden is a busy harbor and one never knows where and when the boats will be moving. A commercial fishing dock, a fleet of wooden schooners, a mix of pleasure boats, and international luxury yachts all vie for space. It’s no surprise that painters find it a reach, but a reach is always better than the same old same-old.

So we used her viewfinder to grid the drawing and she was able to accurately move it to canvas.

I prefer to paint from floating piers, but that isn’t possible at Camden (or most other working harbors). Viewed from the landing, the curves of the hulls are constantly changing as the tide comes in and out. (They start out being devilishly difficult anyway, so it hardly seems fair.)

Sue painted half this dinghy before the owner moved it on her. A cell phone camera and a matching dock made for a nice save.

Each of my students came up against a difficult problem today. Pamela’s was the easiest to solve. She did a terrific drawing. In moving it to her canvas, she unconsciously changed the crop. It was a simple matter to wipe out that first draft, and then I showed her an easy way to make sure her drawing stayed in scale.

Matt's buoy was symmetrical, yes, but static, no.

Matt’s was a problem of composition. He was drawn to the reflections under a buoy, but “knew” he shouldn’t center it on his canvas. However, the buoy itself is strongly symmetrical needed to be centered on the canvas. A few sketches later, it was apparent that the floating dock and background would give the composition energy.

Sue’s problem was more exasperating. To avoid the overwhelming clutter of the harbor, she concentrated on a single dinghy. Out of dozens there, what were the chances that someone would choose that one to take out? But choose it they did, after she was half finished. Her solution was to work partly from memory and partly from a photo on her cell phone along another patch of dock.

Nancy did a lovely sketch, transcribed it faithfully to her canvas, and blocked in her color successfully. Then she took a look at Pamela’s painting and pronounced her own effort “boring”. Hours later, she was still very unhappy. I liked her treatment of the boats; she emphatically didn’t. Perhaps restating the darks with heavier paint would help, I thought, but no.

Nancy's lovely sketch.

Half an hour later, she was ready to scrape it out. She walked down the landing to scope out a different painting. “Well,” I reasoned, “if she’s going to wipe it out anyways, I might as well see if I can rescue it before she comes back.”

But Nancy didn't like where the painting went. She pronounced it boring. (I loved the little boat with the lateen sail. Very Van Gogh. But she didn't agree with me.)

Sometimes students resent their teachers painting on their canvases, but sometimes teachers paint on them because it’s the only way they can figure out what’s going wrong. The first thing I realized is that Nancy wasn’t using enough paint. I pushed some thicker paint against her boats, and immediately they were stronger and livelier—and I never changed a thing on them. (That lateen sail is my favorite part of her painting.)

Just a few things changed, and one can see the route to salvaging this painting. Still not perfect, but it is definitely doable.

When Nancy did her sketch, I imagine she saw the foreground water as having form. That didn’t transfer to her painterly version. So I lengthened the reflections of the background buildings, and built in patterns of ripples. I tied the floating dock to the water by using the same highlight color (a diffuse blue-violet). Lastly, I pointed up the buildings a bit and simplified the treeline.

I still see a lot more that could be done, but it’s well on the way to being salvaged.

When it’s all going wrong:

• Step back and look at it from a distance;
• When you’re nervous, you’re probably not using enough paint. That results in an anemic painting;
• Restate your darks. It often happens that you hate your painting because you lost the overall value pattern that attracted you in the first place;
• Take a break. Have some coffee. Flirt with the lobstermen. You will usually come back to your work in a far better frame of mind.

Tomorrow: Monhegan! We're finishing up the workshop session strong! August and September are sold out, but there are openings in October! Check here for more information.

Painting at lovely Camden harbor

As it was misty and cool today, we went to Camden harbor, with its many lovely wooden boats and fine galleries.

Intrepid dockside painters.

C's color temperature study from yesterday.

Rearranging dinghies to suit.

A lovely sensitive sketch of dinghies, by C.

Dinghies, painted by S.

J, painting the scene across the harbor.

Other J, painting her first boats ever... and doing a lovely job of it.

And an ice-cream sundae for dessert--with fresh berries, chocolate, and a delish cookie.
There is only one slot open for my July workshop at Lakewatch Manor in Rockland, ME, and August and September are sold out.  Join us in July or October, but please hurry! Check here for more information.