And the things that we ate!

My personal favorite will always be codfish, here served with polenta with kale. But it's equally likely to be grassfed beef, or a curry, or chicken stew.

This week, I’m taking a look back at my summer, both in Maine and in Rochester. 

Fresh greens with nasturtium blossoms.

When I arrived at Lakewatch Manor at close to midnight last Saturday, there was home-made hummus and bagel chips with za'atar waiting for me.  And I left after a predawn breakfast of fish and organic spinach. The innkeepers are food revolutionaries of a kind that Maine seems to specialize in. 

But others might prefer Apple Cider Doughnuts from the Willow Bake Shoppe in Rockland. Baked, not fried.

They believe in sustainable practices and healthy, organically-produced foods, they practice permaculture, and they buy local. That might mean buying grassfed meats from Sap Bush Hollow farms in Schoharie County, New York, or seafood from Sea Hag Seafood in Tennant’s Harbor, ME, whose founder just received an entrepreneurial award.

Or organic thick rolled oats with ground flax with fresh berries. Oh, where did I put my flourless chocolate torte photo?

In fact, they’ve so changed my thinking that I’ve been musing about making my next house one where I can keep chickens.

Our lunches were always delicious! Since my usual on-the-road lunch is a Clif bar, this was definitely several steps up.

Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Maine in 2014. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!

Start with the canvas!

Autumn leaves.... as done by a painter.

When the gifted Shibori dye-master Jane Bartlett offered to help me make fancy cookies for an event, the planning revolved not around the baking, but what array of icing colors would yield the most natural fall colors.

“I suppose I have to get up early and make the dough,” I sighed.

“Yes, you must start with the canvas!” she answered.

The canvas: my mother's Christmas cookie recipe.

My trusted assistant Sandy Quang (who has a BFA from Pratt) also pitched in. At one point I was lamenting that the maples leaves I made with fuchsia and chartreuse looked good; the ones with fuchsia and green did not. “That’s because the pink and green are too close in value,” Sandy observed. I’m so happy that her pricey art education is paying off.

Jane Bartlett puts her dye-mixing skills to work, in a medium she's never used before.

“The reason male artists are more successful than their female counterparts is that they never get sidetracked into projects like this,” I grumbled as the hours stretched on.

She left the color streaky, to imitate the veins of the leaves.

“No, they get sidetracked into furniture-making. This is ephemeral art,” Sandy chirped.  

A good array of pre-mixed pigments speeds the job up.

I suppose that label could be applied to all good food preparation, which certainly gives humanity more joy than, say,  Mark Quinn’s Self, which is a frozen cast of the artist’s head made of his own blood. 

Sandy specialized in oak leaves; I specialized in maple leaves. Jane was a generalist, but nobody particularly liked doing the sumac leaves.

Each time I teach a workshop at Lakewatch Manor, my students react with joy to the artistic, delicious meals they are served. I observe that the innkeepers seem to take equal joy in making them.

One more workshop left this year! 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!

Bid early! Bid often!

Painting on a floating dock during the Quick-Draw. My preferred vantage point for boats. (Photo by Howard Gallagher)

I have an informal contest with a Maine pal about which of us can be mentioned most often in the media. Until this week, we were tied, but I think I just out-paced him with photos in the Penbay Pilot and the Camden Herald.

Saturday is my 33rd wedding anniversary and my Dear Spouse has been very even-keeled (ahem) about my being away so often, so I will reluctantly miss the auction of our paintings.

Two works will be in it, this:

Camden and Mt. Battie, oil on linen board, 12X16

And this:

The Schooner Mercantile, oil on canvasboard, 11X13

The Wet Paint Auction will be held on Saturday, September 7 from 6:30-7:30pm at the Bok Amphitheatre in Camden Harbor Park, located behind the Camden Public Library. (A bit of trivia: these gardens were designed by the Olmstead Brothers and Fletcher Steele in 1931, and they are worth the trip to Camden in their own right.) There will be a preview prior to the auction, from 5:30-6:30pm. Kaja Veilleux of Thomaston Place Auction Galleries will conduct live bidding.

However, you can also bid long distance, via email by clicking here. Absentee bidding will close at noon on Friday, September 6. Absentee bids must include your name, address, home and cell phone, email address, name of artist, title of painting and maximum bid (not including tax or shipping). Absentee bidders will be notified of the results on Sunday, September 8.

Yesterday I said that there are three beginning painters signed up for the October session. I stand corrected—there are three novices, one intermediate, and one advanced painter. If you haven’t registered but want to, know that October 2013—last session with openings in 2013—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!

The best fan mail

Three watercolors done by Shirley last October. I can't wait to see what she does in Maine this October! 

The greatest compliment to an instructor is to have a student sign up again for another year. While I was in Camden last week, I learned that Shirley, a student from last October’s Irondequoit Inn program, will be joining me in Maine this October.

Shirley is darn intrepid. She let us put her in the bottom of a canoe and paddle through a choppy lake and a maze of streams until we reached a beaver dam and had to back our way out. I promise right here and now we won’t be doing that again.

Shirley letting us take her for a canoe ride...

But I also promise that the food—of such high caliber at last year’s workshop—is at least as good this year in Maine.

Shirley has a BFA from Syracuse University and was a prizewinner at the second annual Chautauqua National Exhibition. (In the spirit of things coming full circle, I participated in two Chautauqua National shows myself, a few decades later.)

To balance her out there are three novice painters signed up for the October session—and a couple of additional openings, one of which probably has your name on it. She’s a lovely person, and you’d enjoy being in class with her.

If you haven’t registered but want to, know that October 2013—last session with openings in 2013—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!

And on the Eighth Day, God created a deluge so I would go home

The Dugs in Autumn (Beaver Dam near Speculator,) 11X14, oil on canvasboard, by Little Ol' Me.

Maine loves me, I can tell. The weather dawned fine and fair for the whole week of the Camden Plein Air Festival, any rain containing itself to evening or early morning hours. On Monday I awoke to the steady thrum of rain on the roof. It rained solidly for the fourteen hours it took to get back to Rochester.

Ah, a Labor Day tradition: rain.

There is no day so dismal for driving in the Northeast as Labor Day, since school traditionally starts the next morning and we are all desperate for our last gasp of fun. After crawling across the Sheepscot River bridge and inching along 295 toward Portland, we decided to strike off to the west and try to intersect with NH Route 101 to head cross-lots to Bennington, VT. Ultimately, we did, but it was a very slow drive, since apparently the half of New England that wasn’t fuming on US 95 had decided to join us. Still, it was beautiful.

Lovely even in the rain.

When I see the early soft maples in the mountains starting to turn red, I am reminded of a woodsman who vacationed at the Irondequoit Inn this time of year. His name is John Porter, and he is a master at tree identification. There is no color like that color of the soft maples in swampy mountain lands. The painting, above, is of an area dammed by beavers in Speculator, but it could also have been any road between Bennington and Keene, where the earliest hints of color are appearing in the soft maples.

Intimations of color in the highlands.

I’ll be back in Maine in three weeks. By then, the Bennington-Keene-Manchester route will be in full early-autumn color. Perhaps it will be the route I should take. And by then, I will be able to get a table at Fernald’s Country Store or the Bagel Café in Camden. There is no season that isn’t good in Maine.

My upcoming workshop students need supply lists. Check here:

·         Watercolor

·         Pastels

·         Oils

If you haven’t registered but want to, know that October 2013—last session with openings in 2013—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!

Holy cow, this place is a zoo!

Downtown Camden, oil on canvasboard, by little ol' me.

If you thought Camden was crowded on a normal summer day, you should see it during the Windjammer Festival. I ended up parking halfway to Rockland, and I fielded about a thousand questions and comments from passers-by. Good thing I love talking to people!

Look at all them wooden boats!

I’m from a city of festivals, and I’m pretty jaded about them, but there is nothing like seeing all those big ships in one harbor. Amazing.

And somehow, I got a decent painting of the town done, despite the interruptions.

(This was Day Five 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!

Back in the saddle again

Behind Main Street on the Megunticook River, oil on canvas, 12X16, by little ol' me.

 I felt this morning as if I’d been thrown by a particularly fractious horse and was having a hard time dragging myself back into the saddle. That was compounded by a cold rain which put paid to my first idea for a subject. That was to drive out to Aldermere Farm to paint Belted Galloways in front of Mount Battie. (Neither cattle nor mountains have rigging, tidal changes, or any claim to carefully measured angles.)

Hey! I thought you said we were giving up obsessive drafting today!

In pursuit of a sheltered painting spot, I ended up on the Riverhouse Footbridge over the Megunticook River. This was hardly the place of soft shapes I’d been dreaming of, but it is a view I’ve wanted to paint for a while. Essentially, it’s a different view of this scene, which I painted earlier this month.

Reason #6345 why I love my easel: it can set up in a minimum of space on a narrow footbridge.

“Nothing ever came from a life that was a simple one,” Flogging Molly howled in my headphones as I worked. That seemed appropriate. One day up, one day down—the secret is to never be so much in the moment that you forget the long view. Yesterday, I forgot how to paint. Today I liked what I painted. Tomorrow… well, who knows what tomorrow will bring?

This was such a complicated thing to draw that I never got past the “laying in paint” phase to see it as a whole. I suspect it will need tweaking before I submit it in the morning.

A man came by and asked me what these plants were. "I see them on the beach, I see them everywhere," he said. "Um, the things on the beach are rosa rugosa. These are cherry tomatoes," I answered. I definitely pegged him as 'from away.'

On Saturday, I paint in a two-hour “quick draw,” the results of which will immediately be auctioned off. Will I be able to get out of this obsessive phase I find myself in before then? I sure hope so.

When the fairy lights come on, you're done for the day.

(This was Day Four of Camden Plein Air, Camden Falls Gallery’s annual paintout 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!

My hooptie

My ride. My backpack. All rolled into one.

I had such a great day painting, I think I'd like to talk about my bike. My ride (and it's not a hooptie, no matter what my friend Toby says) works to carry my stuff around, but is rendered impractical by the sheer volume of traffic in Camden—it would be insane to ride a bike on the street and the sidewalks are jammed. So I’m using it as a glorified cart.

Coming in from the north, I hit fog north of Lincolnville, and had my fingers crossed hoping it would stretch to Camden. Gone was my idea of painting the Megunticook or the Farmer’s Market; the fog was all that mattered. I was overjoyed to see it persist; the captains of the charter boats, not so much. They  were stuck in port until it cleared. But clear it eventually did, and there went both my boats along with the fog.

I have no opinion on it except it was a heckuva lot of work.

This is a reprise of a theme I painted earlier this month, which you can see here. I personally think I nailed it better the first time, but that’s the nature of paint outs and plein air in general—you can’t predict the outcome.

Perhaps I should have painted the car in the foreground instead...

I have been focusing on the rigging of these darn schooners so intensely, I feel like I painted this entire thing with a size 0 round and a rigger. This isn’t a natural way of painting for me, and tomorrow I have to move off to something else before my head explodes.

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!

Day One at Camden Plein Air

Unfinished, Mt. Battie from Camden Harbor. Will either finish it or scrape it out tomorrow.

The first day at Camden Plein Air dawned with great atmospherics—a light drizzle that had fizzled out by 10 AM. Threatened thunderstorms failed to materialize, and scudding clouds to the north over Mount Battie made for a constantly changeable sky.

Painting with a peanut gallery.

I’ve wanted to paint Mount Battie from the harbor since I’ve been coming to Camden.  I’m not sure what I think of this attempt; it’s accurate enough but the composition isn’t doing anything for me. Before I turn it into a floor tile, I’ll take it back to the harbor in the morning and see if I can do something with the lighting.

And then someone either goes and docks a boat right in the middle of your view, or removes one that was critical to your painting...

I met a new friend today, Renee Lammers, who paints on copper panels. She shared a sandwich with me; we watched each other’s backs quite contentedly.

Painting from the deck of a boat has been on my bucket list for years, so when someone offered me the opportunity to try it this week, I agreed enthusiastically. It will require a still day, but I’m excited about the possibility.

An early bedtime tonight!

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!

On the road again

Eco-Warrior 1: my new backpack for Camden Plein Air.

I’ve been home in Rochester just long enough to scrub the tub, check the mail, and break my printer. This morning I’m en route back to Maine. Since this is a painting trip rather than a teaching one, I’ve got two passengers with me—my entire IT department, in fact. (Note to burglars: don’t assume the Duchy has been left defenseless. When I got home from Maine last weekend it was to find two new young people had moved in. Empty, my house has more occupants than the average American household.)

I’m headed up to beautiful Camden to paint in Camden Plein Air, Camden Falls Gallery’s annual paintout and wet paint auction. From Monday, August 26 through Monday, September 2 participating artists from around New England and the mid-Atlantic region will gather to paint 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.

Eco-Warrior 2: two bikes, my painting kit, luggage and a cooler for three, a bass guitar, and three adult-size human beings. I’ll buy a Tesla when it can do this.

I have wanted to bring my bike to Maine all summer, but could never think up a good excuse to justify it. (The drag on my bike rack cuts my mileage slightly.) This paint-out is the perfect excuse. The contents of my backpack fit perfectly in the plastic milk crate on the back, and I anticipate a week of joyfully pedaling from painting site to painting site.

Because I’m not teaching, I think I’ll be able to blog in real time, but I will be posting a little later in the day than usual.

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!

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!