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Category: Carol L. Douglas

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When good painting locations go bad

Carol’s set up of Durand Lake. Nice mackerel sky, heralding rain (correctly, as it turns out).

 I’ve painted at Durand-Eastman Park for years. I’ve painted on the beach, along Zoo Road, and most often on the embankment facing Durand and Eastman Lakes. These are steep-sided glacial fingerlings reaching back from the shore of Lake Ontario, separated from their mother lake by a narrow strip of land. 
This location is handicapped-accessible. It has picnic tables. It has parking. It had a Porta-Potty, and it’s always several degrees cooler than inland.
Speaking of skies, this was what we had at sunset. Not all that paintable, but interesting for having that fine spun cotton below the altocumulus layer. That Lake Ontario skyline is inexorable, however, and it is matched by an equally flat shoreline. If the clouds don’t cooperate, you have a whole lot of nothing.
With a little manipulation, one could create the illusion* of the stillness of the Adirondacks. Durand Lake seems to disappear through a twisting inlet that gives the impression of limitless possibility. A tree trunk curves fetchingly over the inlet and the sun would often etch that line in lovely contrast to the still, golden water below.
  
So when Carol Thiel and I were kicking around ideas for painting spots, it seemed like a reasonable option for a particularly gorgeous summer evening: limpid, luminous, neither hot nor cool, with ever-changing clouds. It held the promise of a great sunset.
That thud-thud-thud is the sound of jet-skies.
But what the heck happened to my reliable view? The tree that had once dangled fetchingly over the inlet was obscured by new growth. The forms of the lake-shore were overrun with undergrowth, monotonously green in color. The duckweed that usually provides a golden-chartreuse foil was in extremely short supply.
Carol painted it, and did a credible job of finding interest in the scene. Virginia and Lyn turned their backs on it and painted Lake Ontario instead. Now, there’s a thankless painting! The person who can find a composition on the Rochester shore of Lake Ontario—outside the harbors themselves—that’s anything other than a series of horizontal bands punctuated by scrubby trees wins a prize: a freeze-pop in your choice of colors.
One thing we are never in short supply of here in Rochester is trees, so Catherine was wise to default to drawing them. (This park is home to Slavin Arboretum, which is an awfully interesting tree collection.)
And, if you can believe it, they took away the Porta-Potty.  And as sunset moved in, so did a dense, obscuring cloud cover. I really should complain to the city.

“We haven’t come across a Lock 32 this year,” said Catherine, by which she meant that we hadn’t found a painting location that mesmerized us. It must be easily accessible from the city, it must be handicapped-accessible, it must have a bathroom, and it must be interesting. I hate to reprise hits from the past, so I ask my Rochester friends: do you have any brilliant ideas?   
*Durand-Eastman is a particularly noisy park. The traffic on Lakeshore Drive is usually drowned out by the ever-present jet-skis rumbling along the lake. But paintings don’t have soundtracks, thankfully.

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!
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Buoy auction!

As I’ve mentioned here before, I recently painted a Merdonna and Child for an auction to raise money for Penobscot East Resource Center. You can see my buoy here. 
When you’re done leafing through these, you can see all the buoys here. (And I hope you will consider bidding on them to raise money for this organization, which you can also do by emailing the director.) There are more than 60 buoys altogether, and they are very fine work indeed. These were selected under no greater organizing principle than that I liked them. But you may find others you like much better. If so, would you let me know? 

Paula Dougherty’s “Seabirds”

This is colored pencil. As absurd a notion as doing trompe-l’Ĺ“il using fist-sized pastels. And yet it works. The artist says this is a combination of “realistic and mythical seabirds.”  She’s from Brooklin. 

Julie Reed’s “Dressed to Krill”

“This little buoy has been hanging out underwater and has come up dripping with a net covered in krill! Who knew zooplankton could be so beautiful?” says Julie Reed, who–when she’s not beading–is a nurse and volunteer EMT in Deer Isle. 

Jean C. Burdo’s “Seaside Village”

I don’t usually respond to folk art, but this is awfully well-executed, whimsical, and curiously true to what a Maine seaside village looks like. 

Mary Ellen Kelleher’s “Zinnias & Bugs”

“Oh, buoy! Is there anything better than a day in the garden,” it asks.  Great flowers and a luscious blue sky…. and the painter is from Rockland. 

Audrey Yankielun’s “Number 2”

How did Yakielun look at a buoy and see a pencil? Was she a bean-counter in Westfield, NJ before (as she states on her website) “walking away from my corporate position in 2007?” No idea, but she made me say, “I wish I’d thought of that!”

Jill Hoy’s “Dancing Tree”

No mystery to this: it looks like a Tom Thompson or Group of Seven tree, so of course I like it. Hoy operates a gallery in Stonington, and I think I’d like to wander up to see it on one of these trips. 

Persis Clayton Weirs’ “Torrey Pond”

Having just painted a buoy myself, I’m in awe of the control needed to do this work on this surface. Torrey writes, “A mile walk back into the woods from our house leads to a beautiful wild pond. Cat tails and lily pads line the shores and spread into the shallows. Torrey Pond is a haven to eagles, water birds, beavers, snapping turtles and an occasional visiting moose visiting from the mainland.” 

Rebekah Raye’s “The Owl & Pussy Cat Set Sail”

Well, why not? (I think I actually saw their beautiful pea-green boat in Camden harbor last month.)

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!

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Salvaging a fail (v. 2) and then messing up again

Rising Tide at Wadsworth Cove, 16X12, oil on canvas. Available; please contact Lakewatch Manor for details.

Saturday dawned fair and bright in lovely Castine, ME. I had a plan for my painting; I knew that low tide was at 9:21 AM; I had croissants and fresh local blueberries for breakfast. By 7:30, I was at my location and ready to roll out something brilliant.
Wadsworth Cove at low tide.
The organizers had promised me a clearing sky, and that’s where I faced my first decision: horizon above the midpoint or below it? If the sky stayed as it was, a low horizon would mean a fantastic painting; if the sky cleared, that would produce something less satisfying.
Wadsworth Cove at Low Tide, 12X16, oil on canvas. Finished, but I wasn’t happy with it. It’s now in a private collection, and the new owner insists she likes it better than my final painting. She might be right, since the final painting is still available.
I bet on a clear sky and put the horizon above the midpoint. The day resulted in a succession of fantastic skies. (They may not have been a focal point on my canvas, but I’ve learned to simply enjoy the beauty God plays out for me.)
When you’re not happy with your composition, use all the tools at your disposal to make it better: greyscale drawings and viewfinders are both helpful.
I based my composition on the serpentine channel that cuts across Wadsworth Cove at low tide. Three hours in, I realized that the s-curve wasn’t carrying its weight and the boat was simply badly placed, being too low, too angled, and too far to the right. It was, however, too late to complete another painting of this size before the tide rose and filled the cove. It wasn’t, however, too late to do the painting in pieces.
I looked up at one point to realize my paper towel roll had unwound itself in the steady breeze.
So I flung my first sketch on the ground and reframed the composition. Having made careful sketches and taken my decisions on lighting earlier in the day, I could take my time and not race the rising tide.  I painted from the mid-point forward, ignoring the horizon and landmass to the right until I’d captured the sand itself. The result—if I may say so myself—is a successful treatment of a difficult subject: a real-time record of a moving tide.
I finished this painting when the tide was high. And, no, I didn’t use a photo to do so; I worked from my prior oil sketch, here thrown on the ground. (The new owner knows to wait until it dries to take the bugs out of the paint.)
However, after nine days on the road, my poor Prius was a complete mess. I tend to melt down when my stuff is in a shambles, and I was fighting this problem all day. I couldn’t find the tools I needed. At one point, I couldn’t even find my paints.  Still, I would normally expect to be able to finish two 12X16 paintings in eight hours, and I did so, even though one of them wouldn’t be shown. I was done in ample time to deliver my selection to the Maine Maritime Academy by 4:30.
Me, buckle under pressure? Not even when my glasses fall into my palette or I lose my paints! But afterwards… oh, boy!
At which point, I started to fall apart. I sent a pilot hole through the front of the frame. Worse, I couldn’t find my generic price list (which I carry to protect myself from my own absent-mindedness) and mis-priced my work. It didn’t sell because I’d marked it way high, and that was in spite of it being a good, strong painting.
Dear Readers know I’m awfully protective of my delightful little Prius. I hated seeing it like this; worse, I couldn’t find anything in it.
Oh, well; these things happen. No sense worrying about it. But while an error in pricing work is no big deal, if I made a similar error driving, it could have disastrous consequences. For this reason, I’ve decided that my next trip (in a mere two weeks!) can’t be quite such a pressure-cooker. I am not going to blog live when on the road. Journalists reprise their greatest hits when they’re traveling; that’s what I plan to do, too.
In its tailored little black frame: Rising Tide at Wadsworth Cove, 16X12, oil on canvas. Available; please contact Lakewatch Manor for details.
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!
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“24 Reasons Everyone Should See Maine Before They Die” includes a lot of mid-coast Maine

Back in Rochester, I’m a bit dazed from an exceptionally long day of travel yesterday. I did find myself perking up tremendously from this: “24 Reasons Everyone Should See Maine Before They Die.” I’ve been to almost every one of these places, and they’re iconic and beautiful. Rather more surprising is how many of them are on my shortlist of places to paint on my workshop:

Owl’s Head Lighthouse

I painted this as a demo for my July workshop and framed it Monday before leaving Maine. How fine it looks in an elegant black frame:
Owl’s Head Light, 8X10, oil on canvas, by little ol’ me. Available.

Marshall Point Lighthouse

Every time I’m there, someone tells me about Forrest Gump, but I’m probably the last remaining American who hasn’t seen it. I’ve never painted the lighthouse, but the setting is one of my favorite spots to paint in mid-coast Maine.
Sunset at Marshall’s Point, 8X6, oil on canvas, by little ol’ me. Private collection.

Camden

Camden harbor is never boring, with its big fleet of wooden schooners moving in and out of the harbor. There are also gazillionaires’ yachts, which aren’t as lovely but are equally entertaining. But I probably love the old dinghies and modest dories as much as anything—certainly for painting.

Monhegan

Monhegan has more artists per square inch than any other place in Maine. Despite that, it’s still charming and still beautiful.
If I were in charge of this list, I’d ditch Freeport, because I’m not much of a shopper. I’d add in Eastport (with its ethereal ghostliness) and Castine (about which I’ll write tomorrow).
However, it’s pretty amazing that a sixth of the places they chose as iconic are on my Maine workshop itinerary, isn’t it?

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 herefor more information on my Maine workshops!
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Monhegan

Painting on a porch overlooking Manana Island. It’s a tough life.
On the road with fruit smoothies in our bellies and egg sandwiches in hand (courtesy of the fantastic chef at Lakewatch Manor) we were queuing at the Monhegan ferry at 7 AM in a steady drizzle. Our plan was to paint from the deck of a private residence, but that plan changed when we met George, a multiple-generation islander who kindly drove down to the dock to fetch us and our painting gear.
Matt in touch with his inner pirate.
George offered the use of his porch, a roaring fire, his coffee-maker, his dining room, and a second-floor painting aerie.  How could anyone resist on a chilly, misty day?

Preparatory to painting.
It was a fantastic day, but all too soon the ferry’s inexorable schedule called us back. From Port Clyde, I was on the road to the 2013 Castine Plein Air Festival. It was hard saying goodbye to my students, but they all promise to be back next year.

George and I compared aprons.
Nancy was a veritable painting machine–three paintings in less than eight hours.
Nancy’s painting of daylilies and the sea.

Nancy’s painting of Manana Island.

Nancy’s second painting of daylilies.

Matt’s painting of Manana.

Pamela’s painting of Manana.

Pamela’s painting of rooftops.
We finishing up on a real high note! August and September are sold out, but there are openings in October! Check here for more information.
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How to recover from a fail

Pamela’s lovely painting of Camden harbor. Yes, the sheds across the harbor are completely cockamamie.
Nobody goes to a painting workshop expecting to do brilliant work, but my students have been painting at a high level. But into each life come a few tough painting days, and today was one of them.
Pamela’s sketch for the above. Her first try on canvas lost this lovely composition.
Camden is a busy harbor and one never knows where and when the boats will be moving. A commercial fishing dock, a fleet of wooden schooners, a mix of pleasure boats, and international luxury yachts all vie for space. It’s no surprise that painters find it a reach, but a reach is always better than the same old same-old.
So we used her viewfinder to grid the drawing and she was able to accurately move it to canvas.
I prefer to paint from floating piers, but that isn’t possible at Camden (or most other working harbors). Viewed from the landing, the curves of the hulls are constantly changing as the tide comes in and out. (They start out being devilishly difficult anyway, so it hardly seems fair.)
Sue painted half this dinghy before the owner moved it on her. A cell phone camera and a matching dock made for a nice save.
Each of my students came up against a difficult problem today. Pamela’s was the easiest to solve. She did a terrific drawing. In moving it to her canvas, she unconsciously changed the crop. It was a simple matter to wipe out that first draft, and then I showed her an easy way to make sure her drawing stayed in scale.
Matt’s buoy was symmetrical, yes, but static, no.
Matt’s was a problem of composition. He was drawn to the reflections under a buoy, but “knew” he shouldn’t center it on his canvas. However, the buoy itself is strongly symmetrical needed to be centered on the canvas. A few sketches later, it was apparent that the floating dock and background would give the composition energy.
Sue’s problem was more exasperating. To avoid the overwhelming clutter of the harbor, she concentrated on a single dinghy. Out of dozens there, what were the chances that someone would choose that one to take out? But choose it they did, after she was half finished. Her solution was to work partly from memory and partly from a photo on her cell phone along another patch of dock.
Nancy did a lovely sketch, transcribed it faithfully to her canvas, and blocked in her color successfully. Then she took a look at Pamela’s painting and pronounced her own effort “boring”. Hours later, she was still very unhappy. I liked her treatment of the boats; she emphatically didn’t. Perhaps restating the darks with heavier paint would help, I thought, but no.
Nancy’s lovely sketch.
Half an hour later, she was ready to scrape it out. She walked down the landing to scope out a different painting. “Well,” I reasoned, “if she’s going to wipe it out anyways, I might as well see if I can rescue it before she comes back.”
But Nancy didn’t like where the painting went. She pronounced it boring. (I loved the little boat with the lateen sail. Very Van Gogh. But she didn’t agree with me.)
Sometimes students resent their teachers painting on their canvases, but sometimes teachers paint on them because it’s the only way they can figure out what’s going wrong. The first thing I realized is that Nancy wasn’t using enough paint. I pushed some thicker paint against her boats, and immediately they were stronger and livelier—and I never changed a thing on them. (That lateen sail is my favorite part of her painting.)
Just a few things changed, and one can see the route to salvaging this painting. Still not perfect, but it is definitely doable.
When Nancy did her sketch, I imagine she saw the foreground water as having form. That didn’t transfer to her painterly version. So I lengthened the reflections of the background buildings, and built in patterns of ripples. I tied the floating dock to the water by using the same highlight color (a diffuse blue-violet). Lastly, I pointed up the buildings a bit and simplified the treeline.
I still see a lot more that could be done, but it’s well on the way to being salvaged.
When it’s all going wrong:
  • Step back and look at it from a distance;
  • When you’re nervous, you’re probably not using enough paint. That results in an anemic painting;
  • Restate your darks. It often happens that you hate your painting because you lost the overall value pattern that attracted you in the first place;
  • Take a break. Have some coffee. Flirt with the lobstermen. You will usually come back to your work in a far better frame of mind.

Tomorrow: Monhegan! We’re finishing up the workshop session strong! August and September are sold out, but there are openings in October! Check here for more information.
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Misty

Winslow Homer, The Artist’s Studio in an Afternoon Fog (1894)

We set out today to discuss Winslow Homer’s use of the diagonal in his coastal paintings. Could there be a more lovely example than The Artist’s Studio in an Afternoon Fog(1894), which is owned by Rochester’s own Memorial Art Gallery? And yet this painting proved even more appropriate than I anticipated, for we painted through mists all day.
Nancy hard at work on a misty bluff.

Arlene painted along the shore.

Matthew among the rocks.

Sue was in the pines.
Rocks and sea are far more energetic than meadows and flowers. To organize them, one must first consider the motive power driving the composition and harness the elements to that force. But added to the constant motion of the sea are the cyclical tides. They make a value sketch invaluable. Inevitably, the painter will lose the thread of his or her composition as the tide rushes in or out or the light suddenly changes. Being able to refer back to one’s value sketch is often the only way to save a floundering painting.
A value study by Pamela… everyone did them.
And look how fantastic the results were!
Pamela’s seascape.
Sue’s seascape.

Nancy’s seascape.

Matt’s seascape.
The second of my Maine workshops is half over, and we’re having a great time. August and September are sold out , but there are openings in October! Check here for more information.
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Atmospheric perspective

Atmospheric enough for you?
Today was damp and drizzly—a perfect opportunity to consider atmospheric perspective. We did so at Glen Cove in Rockport, where on a clear day we can see islands in the far distance. Today was not a clear day; it became steadily less clear as we went on.
Matt’s view of the above scene. Yes, those are water droplets on his canvas.
Atmospheric (or aerial) perspective is the tendency of objects far away to have less contrast and chroma than objects nearby. In painting, we create the illusion of depth by depicting more distant objects as lighter and less-detailed than closer objects.
Pamela chose a long view of a boat at anchor. By the time she finished, the scene was monochromatic.
That’s not just a painterly convention. Solar radiation approaches the Earth in a direct beam, but is then scattered around in our atmosphere. That’s what gives us blue skies, pink sunsets and atmospheric perspective. On a clear day, there’s more of it bouncing around between you and that distant hill than between you and your coffee cup, so the distant hill looks bluer.
Nancy chose the same view, and experienced the same change in conditions.
Of course, when fog comes into play, it is water droplets that obscure that distant hill. However, the effect is the same. The easiest way to execute it is to just add some of the sky color—whether that’s blue, or grey, or violet—into the greens of the distant hills. The more distant the object, the more sky color should be added to it.
Sue chose the beach view.
At about 2 PM, the atmospherics had gotten a bit too thick to see much of anything at all, so we had a cup of hot tea and proceeded to the Farnsworth.  There we saw, among many fantastic paintings, Fitz Henry Lane’s Shipping in Down East Waters (1854) which is a luminous painting of boats in fog. Nothing like seeing how a master did it!
Sue hard at work.

And if these days weren’t enough, my intrepid students went out last night and painted the full moon over Chickawaukie Lake:
Matt’s view across Chickawaukie Lake.

Pamela’s view across Chickawaukie Lake showed the sinuous ripples that were there.
Matt’s second view across Chickawaukie Lake.
Nancy’s view across Chickawaukie Lake.

Pamela’s second view across Chickawaukie Lake.
The second of my Maine workshops started today. August and September are sold out , but there are openings in October! Check here for more information.
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I love a parade

We arrived at our painting site and I heard the exclamation, “I’m in Maine!”
Among the skills necessary to run a successful painting workshop, I should add being the lead car in a convoy. I am proud to say I didn’t lose a single person in downtown Rockland. (One of my students said today that she was enjoying how close our painting sites were to Lakewatch Manor; it’s easy when one is working in beautiful mid-coast Maine.)
That’s a happy painter!
Today, we painted at a lighthouse. This is paradoxically both the easiest and most difficult of subjects. It’s easy to do something recognizable and popular with something so iconic; it’s extremely difficult to move past the clichéd into something truly good. But these being my students, of course they succeeded.
Our first paintings: Sue’s magical look out Penobscot Bay.

Our first paintings: Matt M’s view across the channel. Matt painted this on just a few hours sleep after flying from Belize and driving here from NYC.

Our first paintings: Pamela’s tiny jewel of a view out through Penobscot Bay.

Our first paintings: Nancy’s fantastic view of the lighthouse.
“I never expect to do good work at a workshop,” one student said today, and I generally concur with that. It’s so difficult to integrate new ideas that you lose track of what you know. But of course, they did do good work. After I tortured them with values, paint handling and other technical stuff for hours, they decided to do a “quick draw” to finish the day—15-20 minute paintings. (I apologize but I never got a photo of Nancy’s “quick draw.”)
Matt’s “quick draw.”
Sue’s “quick draw.”
Pamela’s “quick draw.”
And somewhere in there the teacher did a quick demo painting, which she thinks wasn’t half bad.
Lighthouse, by little ol’ me.
The second of my Maine workshops started today. August and September are sold out , but there are openings in October! Check here for more information.
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I forecast a fantastic week ahead

Fitz Henry Lane, Owl’s Head, Penobscot Bay, Maine, 1862, 15.7 in. by 26 in., Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Read about it here. This is where it all starts.
This morning I saw a Facebook posting from one of July’s workshop students. It read, “On my way for a week of painting in beautiful Maine!” She’s excited; I’m excited too. I will be joined by artists from Manhattan, the Hudson Valley, Rochester, Vermont, and Maine. By week’s end, we will have forged new friendships and made some fantastic art.
The little harbor at Owl’s Head today.
We’ll have a reception this evening at beautiful Lakewatch Manor. Tomorrow we will set off to our first destination: Owl’s Head, with its iconic 1826 lighthouse and beautiful rocky promontories.  Fitz Henry Lane painted it in 1862, when the little community of Owl’s Head was raw but not new. It was “discovered” by Samuel de Champlain in 1605, but of course the Abenaki Indians had never really lost it in the first place.
There are still schooners sailing around Owl’s Head today. They come out of Camden, Rockland and Rockport harbors, and we’ll see them regularly. You can learn more about them here.
And how about this weather forecast?

Today: Sunny, with a high near 73. North wind around 5 mph becoming south in the afternoon.
Monday: Sunny, with a high near 71. Light and variable wind becoming south 5 to 10 mph in the morning.
Tuesday: Showers likely, mainly between 7am and 8am. Cloudy, with a high near 70. Northeast wind around 5 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%.
Wednesday: A 30 percent chance of showers. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 73.
Thursday: A 40 percent chance of showers. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 72.
Friday: Mostly cloudy, with a high near 75.
Students painting on a shingle beach below the lighthouse.
A student does a value study preparatory to painting.
The second of my Maine workshops starts today. August and September are sold out , but there are openings in October! I’m also starting a contact list for 2014. Interested? Let me know. Check here for more information.