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Category: bridges

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The Er-i-e was a risin’

The Gasport lift bridge, 6X8, oil on canvasboard.
People frequently ask me if I ever work from photographs. Of course, since the winters in Rochester are long and cold. However, I almost never paint things from photographs that I haven’t investigated thoroughly in the field. Photographs really don’t interest me as a painting source.
Erie Canal at Gasport, 6X8, oil on canvasboard.
Photographs, of course, lie (or they wouldn’t be an art form). They change proportions, light, and color. Working from my own sketches gives me more reliable information about the atmospheric conditions, the angles, and—most importantly—the relative weight of things.
Erie Canal Bridge, 11X14, oil on canvasboard.
I spent yesterday flipping through and organizing field sketches in advance of Friday’s un-sale, and I noticed the many preparatory sketches I made for my painting, Low Bridge (Erie Canal at Gasport).

Erie Canal bridge, 6X8, oil on canvas
I was driving back and forth to Gasport at least once a week at the time. It was easy enough to keep my kit in my car and pull it out somewhere to paint for an hour. To me, these sketches are almost more interesting than the final painting (which I like very much). Their immediacy is what plein air painting is all about.
Towpath, 6X8, oil on canvasboard
I can almost always tell you something about the day on which I painted a plein air field sketch—who I was with, what the weather did, what odd thing happened—but I can almost never tell you things like that about studio paintings. (The exception, of course, being figure sessions.)
These field sketches are included in my Black Friday un-sale (details here).
The finished painting, Low Bridge (Erie Canal at Gasport) 40X30, Carol L. Douglas

I will be teaching in Acadia National Park next August. Message me if you want information about the coming year’s classes or this workshop.
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Finding what you’re not looking for

An old bridge abutment at Bushnell’s Basin… where “moth and rust” have already destroyed man’s handiwork.

Today was my second day walking along the Erie Canal in search of painting sites. It wasn’t as pleasant as yesterday; it was hotter and muggier. Other than the bridge abutment at Bushnell’s Basin (which I’ve painted before), the stretch I chose had little shade and almost no notable features. I turned around and headed home thirsty and rather tapped out.

Rust along an expansion joint on I-490 bridge over Erie Canal at Pittsford. Yikes!
 Unlike the rocks and sky, iron structures are not impervious to time. I’m obviously not an engineer, but I do know that rust is the great leveler here in the northeast, so we dutiful homeowners make a point of keeping our paintwork up. One hopes that our government does the same thing, of course.
It looks poetic as hell, but that’s not what I’m looking for in a bridge I drive on almost daily.
This bridge carries I-490 across the Erie Canal. I’ve walked under a lot of bridges along the Erie Canal—including bridges that are now lost forever in memory—and this is the worst-looking one I’ve ever seen. Yet I-490 is probably the most-traveled road in the Rochester metropolitan area.

Another view of corrosion on the underside of the bridge.
So this isn’t an artistic question, but a practical one: my skills are limited to observing and describing the world. I’ve no idea how one goes about fixing it, but I sure hope someone out there does. Any suggestions?
OK, he’s cute and paintable, but kind of far away from the canal bank.
August and September are sold out for my workshop at Lakewatch Manor in Rockland, ME.  Join us in June, July and October, but please hurry! Check here for more information.