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| Can't quite cope with that diagonal bisecting the picture, but I'll try again. |
When I do a drawing like this, I try to remind myself that
even failures are not a waste of time, because one needs to pass through the
problem to arrive at the solution.
How I managed to convert the lovely diagonal arrow in my
sketch into the overwhelming bisecting diagonal in my drawing, I don’t know.
But this is the most difficult of the sketches on my list, and I will repeat it tomorrow and wrestle
it into submission.
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| It worked so much better in the sketch. |
Midcoast Maine is full of limestone deposits, probably laid
down as seashells. When limestone is burned, the carbon-dioxide burns off and quicklime
is left. This is an enormously useful material, used to make plaster, paper,
mortar, concrete, fertilizer, leather, glue, paint, and glass.
By 1828, there were 60 lime kilns in Midcoast Maine. By the Civil War, the region was producing more than a million casks of lime a year. It helped that Midcoast Maine is heavily forested, fueling the kilns and building the casks used to move the lime to market.
Quicklime had one big problem for the age of wooden ships:
if it gets wet it catches on fire.
The master needed a
keen sense of smell. The odor of lime being slaked by water was an ominous danger
signal… Every crack and crevice through which air might get into the hold and
the doors, ports, and smokestack were quickly sealed with plaster made from the
lime. Then the craft was headed for the nearest harbor and anchored some
distance from the shore and away from other vessels. For at any time she might
burst into flames. The schooner was stripped of all movables and the captain
and crew sat down to await developments. Sometimes three months would go by
before their patience was rewarded and the vessel saved. If, however, the fire
could not be smothered, the vessel was towed to some secluded place and
scuttled.(W.H. Rowe, The Maritime History of Maine)
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| Lime tailings on the Goose River at Rockport, ME |
A devastating fire in 1907 put the final spoke in Rockport’s
lime industry, but the ruined lime kilns are still there. More than a hundred
years later, great piles of lime tailings are still visible along the banks of
the Goose River. Nature slowly attempts to cover this wound, but it is a slow
process.
Uninterested as I was in wading across the Goose River or
trespassing on private property, I was unable to photograph the lime tailings
at an easy angle for drawing. But I think adjusting that diagonal will suffice
to fix compositional problem, and the painting will work just fine.
Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Maine in 2014 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!
