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What you can and canā€™t change

Thought and practice moves our painting style, but itā€™s incremental, just like the Mary Day docking.

Winch (American Eagle), oil on canvasboard, by Carol L. Douglas, 12X16, $1449 framed.

Windjammers are slippery little devils. I should know that by now. You think you understand the rhythm of their comings and goings and you find one or two likely candidates and commit to painting them. Then you look away for a moment and you find a subject slipping away from her berth, heading out to sea.

That happened to me on Monday, when Iā€™d stopped to paint before my dentist appointment. (ā€˜Quickieā€™ has an entirely different meaning to artists than to the rest of the world.) Iā€™d limned in the ketch Angelique, and the light and shadows were notated, but as I sadly watched her slide out of her berth, I knew she wouldnā€™t be back for days.

ā€œYou didnā€™t take a photo, did you?ā€ asked Ken DeWaard. He knows most of my bad habits, thanks to my friend Terry spilling the beans. I could almost paint Angeliquefrom memory, but that never ends well. I shook my head ruefully, and begged him for a picture. ā€œIā€™m just enabling you,ā€ he muttered, but he sent it to me anyway.

Lobster fleet at Eastport, oil on canvas, 24×30, $3478 framed.

There was still the fine flat transom of the Lewis R. French to paint. She celebrated her 150th birthday this year, and thatā€™s something to celebrate. We both set to again, but not five minutes later, Mary Day hove into view. She was heading for the berth directly in front of us. Normally, that would be a good thing, but it would obliterate the rest of our view.

Mary Day doesnā€™t have an engine; sheā€™s pushed into place by a tender. Itā€™s fascinating to watch 90ā€™ of wood and sails delicately slide into her berth, guided by a tiny gnat of a boat. Since our subjects had vanished into the rhythm of a working harbor, we had no choice but to sit back and enjoy the spectacle. We talked about color and mark-making.

Striping (Heritage), oil on canvasboard, 6X8, $435 framed.

I hold that mark-making is as personal as handwriting. Once youā€™ve taught someone how to form their letters, you have very little control over the finished product. Iā€™m shocked, sometimes, to see how much my handwriting resembles my motherā€™s. Thatā€™s a real mystery, since Iā€™m a lefty and she was right-handed.

As a teacher, I do influence my studentsā€™ marks. ā€œDonā€™t dab!ā€ Iā€™m wont to say, although Iā€™m well aware that Pierre Bonnard dabbed to great effect. Heā€™s the exception that proves the rule. Dabbing, in the hands of beginners, looks amateurish.

Mostly, I ask them to experiment with all the different things a brush can do and then find their own ways of using them. Once theyā€™ve found that place, itā€™s pointless to try to shake it up too much. (This is why I donā€™t encourage palette-knife painting in my classes; it short-circuits this process.)

Pleasure boats, oil on canvasboard, 12X16, $1159 unframed. Even though this is not ‘my style’, it’s still one of my favorite paintings.

ā€œThere are things that are immutable, and itā€™s pointless to try to change them,ā€ I said to Ken as we watched Mary Dayā€™s crew work. ā€œFor example, I canā€™t be 6ā€™5ā€ and you canā€™t have my curly hair.ā€

ā€œBut there are things you can change,ā€ said Ken. Heā€™s right, of course. Our choices of brushes, canvas and pigments all influence our paint application, just as choosing a gel pen makes us write differently than with a pencil. Thought and practice moves our painting style, but itā€™s incremental, just like the Mary Day docking. Rush that by copying someone else, and you risk being a parody.

I donā€™t know a single serious artist who thinks he or she is painting wellā€”even the ones who are highly successful. Weā€™re all on a quest; our vision is constantly changing. But through all that, we have something thatā€™s immutable. For lack of a better term, Iā€™ll call it our styles.

You call this working?

For me, serious illness was a  corrective to the impulse to tiptoe around my calling. It reminded me that time is precious and fleeting. 

As I tried to figure out how my carefully-planned day went so haywire, a friend pointed out, ā€œyou hate packing and you love boats.ā€ That is the only explanation for giving up what I absolutely had to do in order to join Howard Gallagher and Ken DeWaard on the Dirty Dory.
Camden is full of beautiful boats. Itā€™s easy enough to find opportunities to paint them at rest. Itā€™s much more difficult to see them under sail. I have a few photos from last yearā€™s trip on American Eagle. Two years ago, Howard took the late Lee Boynton and me out to see the start of the Eggemoggin Reach Regatta. We shot pictures of modern boats. But opportunities to shoot the massive old schooners under way are limited, and I should grab them when I can.
Mercantile raising her sails.
It takes a skilled navigator to get in position while not annoying the schooner crew, and Howard is that. Hereā€™s the video he shot while we were out:
One of the boats we followed out was the ketch Angelique. She is distinctive for her brown-rose tan-barked sails. In 2016, Poppy Balser and I sketched her as she stood off Castine in a harbor that already hosted Bowdoinand J&E Riggin. It was a magical morning but eventually I finished and left. Poppy stayed; Angelique docked; Poppy scored. Timing, as they say, is everything.
Angelique at the Dock, watercolor, by Poppy Balser.
The same was true yesterday. I returned to my studio to frame and photograph paintings and clean and pack my car. Ed Buonvecchio called; we chatted about the recent Finger Lakes Plein Air Festival. Kari Ganoung Ruiz, who won Best in Show, is a friend and a fellow member of Greater Rochester Plein Air Painters. She was my monitor for my 2015 Sea and Sky workshop. Kudos to a fine, fine painter.
Ed and I are heading to Nova Scotia this afternoon to paint in the Parrsboro International Plein Air Festival. I was there earlier this year with Bobbi Heath. The landscape is spectacular and Iā€™m expecting great things to happen.
Angelique leaving Camden harbor.
This three-day event is full of meet-and-greet events, more than this old recluse is accustomed to. The culmination is a Collectorā€™s Gala on Saturday night. I’m a little anxious at its posh description. Oh, well. One bright side to owning only one dress is that one doesnā€™t need to dither about what to wear. No, I’m not packed, but in the end, will anyone remember what I wore?
My husband says that after my first bout with cancer, I quit doing things I didnā€™t want to do. Thatā€™s not entirely true; every life is full of mundane and humdrum chores like packing. What has changed is that I try to not let obligation stand in the way of opportunity. Serious illness is a great corrective to the human impulse to tiptoe around our true calling. It reminds us that time is precious and fleeting.