fbpx

Category: Camden Plein Air Paint-Out

Posted on

Give it to me, baby… for free!

Rye’s Painters on Location is a well-run art fundraiser, one which I’m honored to participate in.
Recently, Tim Kreider wrote a screedin the New York Times about a problem every artist experiences: the endless requests for donations of work to non-profits.
Having a bit of the Blue-Haired Church Lady in my makeup, I’m pretty free and easy about this, even though I know that paintings often sell at fundraising auctions for a fraction of their value. The ones where they ask for a painting are, frankly, the easiest—I just pick something from my inventory, send it, and forget about it. The ones where I’m asked to do something are a bit harder, since time is always in short supply. At one point last summer I was juggling three such requests. It was, frankly, a bit much, especially as I looked around a crowded banquet hall and realized the caterer, the band, and the staff were all being paid, while I was doing my thing for free.
Marilyn Fairman, Brad Marshall, and yours truly painting at Rye’s Painters on Location.
These events are often pitched to artists as “career-enhancing” but in truth they are usually the exact opposite. Our work sells for a fraction of what it commands in the private market, depressing our overall sales record. Often, it’s the wrong audience anyway. I’ve seen PGA tickets go for several times their value while paintings languish at their opening bid. That’s really no surprise when the crowd at the event is a golf-watching rather than an art-buying one.
Another well-organized fundraising event: Camden Plein Air.
Despite this, there are in fact some excellent fundraising art sales out there. These treat artists like professionals and pay them a legitimate price for their work. Rye’s Painters on Location and Camden Plein Air are two such events. (It should come as no surprise that both are organized by arts professionals.)
Ask yourself:
  • Does it raise money for something I really care about? I forgive a lot when the cause is near and dear to my heart. Likewise, I bend rules like crazy for my friends;
  • Is it an art-specific auction? You can’t expect a general auction to bring out many art-lovers, so paintings never sell well at these events;
  • Are they giving a percentage of the proceeds back to the artist? It costs money to participate. If the staffer organizing the event is being paid, you should be paid too;
  • Is it juried? You want your work showcased with other work that is as good as or better than yours.

And remember: you, the artist, cannot deduct the fair-market value of that painting you donated. (I’m not an accountant; I just speak from the bitter experience of an IRS audit.)

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!
Posted on

Here’s to you, Dad

Portrait of Ann Douglas, by John P. Douglas, pastel on paper, c. 1969
Last week I wrote, “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.”
When a reader responded to the above by asking me to share some of my father’s work, I hesitated.
I have only one piece by my father. This is a posthumous portrait of my sister, who died at age 14. These were very dark days in my family, because just a few years later, my parents also lost a son to a drunk driver. If I had a choice of his work to share, it would not be the piece that reminds me of such sad times.
My sister was a very larky girl. My father caught that, even in his deep grief. Although done from memory, it’s a good likeness. Decades later, I can still see the spark of her personality, which photographs never seemed to capture.
My father was born in 1924. By the time he graduated from high school, he could draw, he could letter, and he could print black-and-white photos as well as most BFA holders today. He intended to go to art school, but that plan was interrupted by WWII.
Can’t imagine why signing my name while painting in Camden (bottom) would put me in mind of my father (top)
I doubt my father taught us to paint and draw because he wanted us to go into the arts—he just saw art as a basic function of a well-rounded personality. And, I’m sure, he also wanted to keep us busy.
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!
Posted on

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!
Posted on

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!
Posted on

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!
Posted on

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!

Posted on

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!
Posted on

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!

Posted on

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!
Posted on

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!