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Category: landscape painting

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Time like the tide

Pointe du Hoc, Lee Haber, 11×14, oil.
Baby Boomers’ youth was shaped by two galvanizing events that were also polar extremes. We were the children of men and women molded by the last heroic war, World War II. Yet we came of age during the deeply cynical and anti-heroic years of Vietnam.
Last Friday was the 70th anniversary of VE-Day, which marked the end of World War II in Europe. Most of its soldiers have joined the long grey line marching silently into history. Their wives and sweethearts wait out their days in nursing homes.
Omaha Beach #2, Lee Haber, 11×14, oil.
For those of us whose fathers served in the war, this is a stunning realization. We remember our fathers as young men, reminiscing about their wartime experiences. To realize that the better part of a century has elapsed is astonishing.
Remnants, Omaha Beach, Lee Haber, 16×20, oil.
Earlier this year, painter Lee Haber visited France, including the beaches where Allied troops mounted the vast D-Day assault on the German Atlantic Wall defenses. Casualties were heavy on both sides: of 156,000 Allied troops, there were at least 10,000 casualties.
“I grew up during the war and realize the actions that very young men—boys, really—were compelled to do,” he told me. “I consider myself a bit of a World War II historian, and can hardly imagine the horror, the pain, the hurt.”
Omaha Beach, Normandy, Lee Haber, 12×16, oil.
I’m glad that Lee is painting what is there now, rather than trying to reconstruct the assault itself. Instead, the energy in his paintings is suppressed, lying within the sea and sky. In this work, time, like the tides, eventually washes away all human endeavors, worries, and losses.
You can visit Lee’s website here.
Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me on the Schoodic Peninsula in beautiful Acadia National Park in August 2015. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops! Download a brochure here.
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Two women painters you’ve never heard of

Drama of Fall, Constance Cochrane, c. 1940, depicts Monhegan Island.
Sandy Quang ran across two women painters this week. It’s sad how little documentation there is of their lives and work.
Helen Louise Moseley was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1883. She studied at the Art Institute of Chicago with Robert Henri, Hugh Breckenridge and John Christen Johansen. She regularly exhibited in the Midwest and Gloucester, MA. She died in 1928 in Boston.
Sailboats by Helen Louise Moseley.
Constance Cochrane’s life is better notated. She was born in 1882 at the US Navy Yard at Pensacola, Florida, where her father and grandfather were stationed. Motivated by her navy family, her work concentrated on the sea and shore.
Cochrane studied at the Philadelphia School of Design for Women and with Elliott Daingerfield at his summer studio in Blowing Rock, North Carolina.
Rocky Ocean Scene, Constance Cochrane, undated.
Cochrane was a founding member of the Philadelphia Ten, a group of Philly-based women artists. In 1921 to 1930, she purchased a summer home at Monhegan, where she painted extensively. She died in 1962.

Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me on the Schoodic Peninsula in beautiful Acadia National Park in 2015 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops! Download a brochure here.
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Driving, me crazy!

Rainy Day on Penobscot Bay, oil on canvas, 10X8.
Yesterday morning was so cold that the electronics in my Prius failed. My husband, a computer programmer, held down the power button for fifteen seconds and it rebooted. What motivates a person to be in Maine in these conditions?
I am in search of real estate. I have delightful friends who have hosted me when I’ve taught and worked here, but the time has come to acquire my painting studio in Maine.
That same scene this morning. No way am I walking down to the water.
Most people start at the kitchen when touring a property. I start with the outbuildings, because the studio is what’s important. I’ve found a great agent here who understands this—Jackie Wheelwright of Legacy Properties Sotheby’s International Realty in Camden.
Together we’ve floundered around in a lot of snow. February is a tough time to buy property in the northeast, and this February has been particularly bad. I can’t see the roofs and I can’t get to the outbuildings without my ski poles and a good deal of swearing.
I may not care about cooking but I’m always a sucker for a good little woodstove.
Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me on the Schoodic Peninsula in beautiful Acadia National Park in 2015 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops! Download a brochure here.

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Just this

The Sea of Ice (Das Eismeer), 1823-24, Casper David Friedrich. Imagine that’s the MassPike, and my wee little Prius on the right…
This weekend I drove to Maine in a blizzard. No, it wasn’t the Snowpocalypse that had been predicted by breathless news readers, but it was a nice New England ripper of a snowstorm.
I love the fantastical twisted ice of springs along the road in winter. If I can ever get a good photo, I will paint them.
After the snow stopped falling, my trusty Prius was raked by cross winds that carved and winnowed the snow into fantastical shapes. It reminded me strongly of Casper David Friedrich’s The Sea of Ice.
Note to self: it’s never a good sign when you’re traveling in the same direction as the convoys of power trucks.
Almost unbelievably, I made it to Damariscotta in time for my appointment Sunday afternoon. When I parked for the night, the temperature was 5° with 40 mph gusts. But, Mother Nature, you are a crank indeed! That was warmer than it was at home in Rochester.

Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me on the Schoodic Peninsula in beautiful Acadia National Park in 2015 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops! Download a brochure here.
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Hand over fist

Unfinished, by Carol L Douglas, 16X20, oil on canvas. (The color is distorted because it was dark when I shot this.)
Over the past three years, I have become enamored of the luminist paintings of Fitz Henry Lane. That doesn’t mean I want to paint like him, but I love the space and light in his paintings. I started this boat painting with him in mind, but I did not look at his work. I wanted his technique to suffuse my understanding, rather than push me toward painting like him.
If I’m unsure about the composition, I compare it to this grid I learned in a workshop taught by Steven Assael. 
Sailboats are elegant, and they glide like living creature across the sea. I generally paint them at dock because it is extremely difficult to paint them en plein airin motion, (although I did give it a try at Rye in 2013).
My underpainting. The sky is a complete fabrication. I need to recapture some of the bluntness of this when I finish the painting.
 Last summer, Howard Gallagher of Camden Falls Gallery took Lee Boyntonand me out to see the start of the Eggemoggin Reach Regatta . (It’s a great gallery owner who cares that much for his painters.) It made me passionately want to paint boats in motion.
My reference photo, taken at the start of the Eggemoggin Reach Regatta.
On Monday, I wrote about consistencyand how your style is ultimately your brand. A reader asked how one can experiment, grow and change while still being consistent. Artists know that the creative process never ends; you wrestle through one technical problem only to be faced by another.
Ironically, that was the precise problem I found myself facing. I went back to first principles. I drew and drew the boat until I was confident about its proportions. Since I was unsure of how to divide the space, I used a grid taught by Steven Assael.
Boston Harbor was painted by Fitz Henry Lane around 1850. 
The end result taps into Lane’s luminism, but is by no means a slavish copy. It is both consistent with my work and yet it explores new material. It’s not finished, but it is a good start.

Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Maine in 2015 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops! Download a brochure here.

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An interstate runs through it

Delaware Water Gap, by Carol L. Douglas. This is almost the only paintable vista left since US 80 was built.
Rumor has it that I’m going to New Jersey on Friday. I love New Jersey, but I’ve seen an awful lot of it this month. All this travel is cutting into my painting time. However, I will drive through the Delaware Water Gap, which is a favorite place and always a great mystery to me.
US 80 owns the Delaware Water Gap now.
A water gap is an Appalachian phenomenon, where a river is so old that it predates the lifting and folding of the landscape, and therefore it cuts across a mountain range. Water being so malleable and rock being so hard, it’s difficult to see how this happens, but the evidence is there on those folded, rocky scarps. Water gaps are particularly common in the eastern part of Pennsylvania.
The Delaware Water Gap, 1861, George Inness
US Interstate 80 runs through the Delaware Water Gap now, making it difficult to find a good painting vantage point. I’ve painted several times from along the river’s edge itself. That doesn’t give you the panorama that you would have if you stood right on the pavement (which would make for a very short painting career). There is an overlook on the New Jersey side that might make for a good long-distance painting, but I’ve never hit the right combination of lighting and sufficient time. It isn’t going to happen in the chilling weather we have this week.
On the Delaware River, 1861-1863, George Inness
George Inness is particularly associated with the Delaware Water Gap. His paintings are a bucolic reminder of a time when tractor trailers didn’t own this particular American treasure.
The Delaware Water Gap, 1857, George Inness
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!
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The Open Road

Evening Train, Trans Canada Highway, by Robin Weiss
I have always been interested in paintings of expressways, which is helpful when I’m driving as much as I have been since July. This week’s road follies were not intentional, being precipitated by a set of personal crises on either end of New York State. I saw a lot of Interstate 90 this week, and repeatedly.
Study for Freeway,1978, by Wayne Thiebaud
To the artist, painting is more about the play of color, shape and texture than it is about subject, but I’ve noticed that viewers don’t generally feel that way. They select paintings based on a personal, emotional, call and response.
Lost Highway, by Peter Harris
The open road is neutral, although to many of us, it’s the thing that stands in the way of getting where we’re going. In their own gangly way, our expressways are beautiful.  Like me, the Interstate Highway System itself is a prime example of mid-century modern. Authorized in 1956, the first sections were completed that same year (although in some states, including New York, previous highways were incorporated into the system).

Untitled by Rodgers Naylor
Message me if you want information about next year’s workshops.
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Reappraisal

Reed beds at the Irondequoit Inn didn’t thrill me that much when I painted it, but it turns out to have been predictive of where I’m going as a painter.
Recently, I was listening to some fellow painters talking about how to reuse canvas-boards on which they’d done unsuccessful paintings. I remarked that I almost never reuse boards, because I almost never throw things away. My studio and workshop are full of field sketches and paintings that aren’t going to be shown but aren’t going to be painted over, either. As long as I have the luxury of space, I’m going to continue this practice.
Hayfield in Paradise (private collection) was painted about a decade ago. Yes, it’s obviously by me, but my color sense, my brushwork, and my composition are all much different today.
I think most artists are poor judges of whether something they’re working on is a success. We usually think it works when it flows off the brush without too much pain. However, often the most important work we’re doing isn’t easy. Trailblazing involves hacking out a path with an ax, after all.
I had most of my inventory off my own walls this summer because it was in galleries. To fill the nailholes, I put up some small works from my slush pile. One of these pieces is hanging on the wall opposite my bed, where I see it when I wake up. I didn’t like it that much when I painted it, but after a week back home, I realize that it’s actually very good. It was jarring several years ago; it seems a lot more like me today.
I loathed this painting of the mouth of the Genesee River when I did it, and almost wiped it out. It has really grown on me over the years, and now I think it’s a really cool painting.
Another small painting—a sketch for a larger work—accidentally traveled with me to Maine this summer. Since it had nothing to do with the Maine works I was delivering, I used it to decorate my cabin. When I painted it, I thought it was both elegant and loose. However, the subdued palette has little in common with my work today.
Keuka Vineyard accidentally traveled to Maine with me. I realized after looking at it for several weeks that it’s not that connected with my work today. Nevertheless, I still like it.

You can’t really make these judgments if you obliterate everything you paint that makes you uncomfortable. That’s analogous to ruthlessly weeding out all new seedlings under the mistaken notion that they are weeds. You really can’t tell what’s in your garden until it has a chance to grow.

Message me if you want information about next year’s classes or workshops.
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But enough about me…

Photographer Iván Ramos was at the opening of my show, “God+Man” at Roberts Wesleyan’s Davison Gallery in April. Yesterday he sent me a slew of photos from the event. Sit back and enjoy.
Courtesy of Iván Ramos.

Courtesy of Iván Ramos.

Courtesy of Iván Ramos.

Courtesy of Iván Ramos.

Courtesy of Iván Ramos.

Courtesy of Iván Ramos.

Courtesy of Iván Ramos.

Courtesy of Iván Ramos.

Courtesy of Iván Ramos.

Courtesy of Iván Ramos.

Courtesy of Iván Ramos.

Courtesy of Iván Ramos.

Courtesy of Iván Ramos.

Courtesy of Iván Ramos.

Courtesy of Iván Ramos.

Sorry, folks. My workshop in Belfast, ME is sold out. Message me if you want a spot on my waitlist, or information about next year’s programs. Information is available here.