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Category: Maine

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Homer’s “Wine-Dark Sea”

Heavy Weather, done for now.

Occasionally, scholars get themselves tied up in knots over Homer’s “wine-dark sea.” The Aegean is just as blue as any other sea, and there are many theories about what Homer (or whoever actually wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey) was thinking: it was discolored by red marine algae, Homer was color-blind, the Greeks drank wine that was actually blue, or they didn’t have words to describe the deep blue-green of the sea.

There are times when the ocean just looks ominously dark, and that’s what I think he meant. The wine-dark sea is, to me, Prussian Blue dulled with Burnt Sienna—an unfathomable darkness.

Occasionally, optics can make the ocean look reddish. I took this photo off Sandy Hook, NJ.

It’s very easy to anthropomorphize sailboats. Still, I was startled to realize that Heavy Weather is an autobiographical painting. It is me skittering over the wine-dark sea.

“That should make it therapeutic to paint,” my friend B. said. I don’t really think so, but realizing it is autobiographical made it very easy for me to reach through the painting to correct its fundamental problem.
Heavy weather, increasing the seas.
My cousin Antony is a dedicated sailor. He got right to the issue when he said, “I would expect a lot more white water around if you only had a storm jib up.” Reference photos have a way of flattening hills, mountains, vistas—and raging seas. I needed to feel the water as a surging force, and then paint it as such. Once I realized what I was painting, that was a snap.
This is exploratory, and there are qualities that are very tentative. I have no problem painting water en plein air, but I need a little more assurance to get the same insouciance from reference photos, especially when I don’t have any particularly good ones.
Heavy weather, underpainting.
I’m going to revisit this same subject in a few weeks. But before that happens, I’m off to Maine to do some research for next summer. I’m planning to freeze off my ears so that when you come to Schoodic to paint next August, it will be a perfect trip!

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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Just boats

Drydock at Genesee Yacht Club, 12X16, oil on canvasboard.
I’m sorry about the lack of a post yesterday; the collywobbles-sans-merci blew through my household this weekend. Sometimes when the limbs are still, the mind does its best work.
Last summer Howard Gallagher of Camden Falls Gallery took Lee Boynton and me out to see the start of the Camden feeder of the Eggemoggin Reach Regatta. It’s the first time I’ve ever filled my entire 16-GB memory card and my cell phone with pictures. (I think Lee took about as many.) That day was one of the highlights of my summer.
Howe Point dinghy, 6X8, oil on canvasboard.
I love painting boats, and could spend my whole summer on the dock with them. You can’t paint them under sail en plein air, except as slashes of white against the sky; they move too fast for that. And I don’t generally paint from photos, so I shot pictures of them and contented myself with that. Anyway, my habit for the last decade or so has been to spend the summer painting en plein air and the winter doing figurative work in my studio. Usually that figurative work has an overlay of social commentary to it; I just can’t seem to help myself.
At Camden Harbor, 6X8, oil on canvasboard.
I returned to Rochester in September with a show penciled in for next March and a great concept. Nothing about this has worked out right. The gallery and I haven’t been able to reach terms. I haven’t been able to get the models on board. The model I started with suddenly developed cold feet (perhaps he needs warmer socks). My stretchers were backordered. Yada, yada.
Tide running out, 12X16, oil on canvasboard.
About a dozen times over the past few weeks I’ve muttered to myself, “I’d really rather be painting boats.” And then this weekend, twisting around in the damp embrace of my sheets, I asked myself, “Why aren’t you just painting boats? They make you happy, they make other people happy.” And I realized I have utterly no enthusiasm for this project that has proven so difficult.
At Camden, 12X16, oil on canvasboard.
So I’ve cancelled my spring show in Rochester, and I’m going to paint boats. Not social commentary, just sailboats.

Remember, you’ve got until December 31 to get an early-bird discount for next year’s Acadia workshop. Read all about it here, or download a brochure here. 

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Holiday gift guide #4 (the gift of learning)

Sea & Sky Workshop

August 9-14, 2015 
Acadia National Park
Dramatic, inspirational Schoodic Point in Acadia National Park will be the base for my Maine workshop this year. This is the quiet side of Acadia, far from the hustle of Bar Harbor, but with the same dramatic rock formations, pounding surf, and stunning mountain views that make Acadia a worldwide tourist destination.
The Schoodic Peninsula is more secluded than the main body of the Park; only about 10% of park visitors ever get there. Its main feature is Schoodic Head, at 440 feet above sea level.
Open sea, stunning views of Cadillac Mountain, and veins of dark basalt running through red granite rocks are the dominant features of this “road less traveled.” Pines, birch, spruce, cedar, cherry, alder, mountain ash, and maples forest the land. There are numerous coves, inlets, islands, and lighthouses.
Of course, all skill levels and media are welcome. From beginner to advanced; watercolor, oils, acrylics, pastels — bring any or all with you.
Concentrate on painting

Your meals are included so you can forget about cooking. That’s five nights accommodation, private bedroom with shared bath at the Schoodic Institute in Acadia National Park.

There will be a lobster feast on Sunday evening, and all meals and snacks up to and including breakfast on the day of departure.
And of course there will be morning and afternoon instruction, Monday-Friday—or even a nocturne if you want to try it.


Rates

Private room with shared bath at the beautiful, secluded Schoodic Institute, with room, board and instruction is just $1150.

Non-painting partner sharing a painter’s room is just $500 including all meals.

There are limited family apartments available for a $500 upcharge plus $325/person for meal plan. Contact me ASAP if you want one of these; they go quickly.

All rates include 8% Maine hotel tax.

Discounts

$125 Early Bird discount if your deposit of $300 is received by December 31, 2014.

We’re offering a $50 discount to New York Plein Air Painters OR returning students.

To register

Space is limited! Email me for a registration form.

Refunds available up to 60 days prior to start, less a $50 administration fee.

Don’t forget my holiday sale, next week!

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Second Sleep

Squash stored in the off-the-grid compound. Wish I would be here in the winter.

My current travels have made me think about segmented sleep—the idea that we sleep in two separate chunks during the night. Over a twelve-hour time frame, people historically slept for 3-4 hours, were awake for three or four hours, and then slept again for three or four hours. This is not a new idea, and a lot of research supports it.

Sea captain carved by a Maine ship’s carpenter some time in the last century. A few pieces by him in the off-the-grid compound.
Like all kids do, my new grandson Jake came out of the womb as a nocturnal creature. Listening to him fuss during the night, I was reminded that the first, most pressing job of new parents is to train their children to sleep at night. I remember this as the hardest job of parenting, and my own children effectively wrecked my ability to sleep through the night. I’m still a cyclical insomniac.
I’m in Maine looking for locations for my 2015 workshops. Here’s surf at Popham Beach.
We’ve spent the last two nights off the grid, where the only light from 6:14 PM to 6:38 AM comes from the moon and stars or candles and flashlights. Since a lot of hay has been made about how electric light, TV, radio, and the internet confuses modern man’s sleep cycle, being off line should help, right? Honestly, I don’t think it has, but perhaps a few nights here and there can’t erase a half-century of bad habits.
Granite blocks at Ft. Popham State Historic Site, a Civil-War era fort.

Message me if you want information about next year’s classes and workshops.
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What I do in my down time

The whole Northeast is beautiful this week, but my camera is broken, so cell phone pictures are what you’re getting.

Having been in the Berkshires this week, I thought I’d run up to Maine and look at a few possible properties to host my 2015 workshops. Again, I’m staying in the cabin off the grid, but this time I have my husband with me.

Off the grid is so much nicer when you have your Significant Other with you.
And he loves the place. “I figured that outhouse was half a mile away, through the woods,” he teased. And then, “I’d like to come back here in the winter.”
It’s easier with company; the coyotes don’t seem so close, and reports of a mountain lion aren’t quite as terrifying when you’re walking on wooded path on a moonless night.
So many places one could host a workshop… this is just one of my dream homes that isn’t on the market.
That was last night. This morning dawned clear and cold and he got a tiny taste of what winter in the woods might be like. And he’s still enthusiastic. Go figure.
The Maine landscape is so varied that I could move my workshop up and down the coast for years and it would never get stale.
Message me if you want information about next year’s classes and workshops.
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How I spent my summer vacation

Janith Mason epitomizes the joy most people feel at painting in Maine. It’s just that kind of place.

Summer slipped past me like road markers on the interstate, perhaps because I’ve driven 7500 miles since June 27. Working sun up to sun down with almost no days off for five weeks is exhausting, but it was deeply rewarding at the same time.

Sunset over the Hudson was painted at Olana.
In early June I drove to the Catskills to join a select group of New York plein air painters at a retreatorganized by Jamie Williams Grossman.  I came home to miss my own opening of God+Man at Aviv! Gallery, because of a health issue—the first time that’s ever happened to me. (Mercifully, I made my student show’s opening the following Sunday afternoon.)
Back in Rochester, the official first day of summer found my class huddled up against a cold wind off Lake Ontario. Since the lake nearly froze solid last winter, that was understandable. In fact, it’s been a cooler-than-average summer here, and our tomatoes are just now thinking of ripening.
I may have missed my own opening in June, but I did make it to my student show. Of course, there was beer.
I was walking in Mt. Hope Cemetery on Independence Day when I saw a young man painting en plein air. Turns out to be an RIT graduate named Zac Retz. He and another young friend joined us one more time before I left for Maine. I hope to see them again.
July found my duo show with Stu Chait, Intersections of Form, Color, Time and Space, closed down by RIT-NTID’s Dyer Gallery. The nude figure paintings might have offended young campus visitors. That’s a gift that keeps on giving, since the paintings had to be packed and moved in a hurry by two young assistants; they’re still in my studio awaiting their final repacking and storage.
My $15 porta-potty turned out to be one of the best investments I’ve ever made.
I couldn’t move them myself because by that time I was living off the grid in Waldoboro, ME. From there I went to one of my favorite events of the year, Castine Plein Air, which was followed by ten days of painting in Camden and Waldoboro.
Evening Reverie, sold, was one of many pieces I painted for Camden Falls Gallery this summer.
Then on to my workshop in Belfast, which was a lovely mix of friends old and new. This year, a number of participants traveled with their families, which lent a wonderful tone to the experience. From there I joined Tarryl Gabel and her intrepid band of women painters in Saranac Lake to participate in Sandra Hildreth’s Adirondack Plein Air Festival.
By the time you read this, I will be on the road again. This time it’s not work; I’m going to see family. I’m really looking forward to being back in Rochester teaching again, and starting on a new body of studio work.

 Message me if you want information about next year’s classes or workshops.
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Lesson #1: sunscreen makes a lousy white paint

Three houses, a bad photo of a decent painting by little ol’ me.
It’s a little hard to get an hourly forecast for a specific spot on the Maine coast. It can be pouring in one place and clear in the next town over. However, not only was the National Weather Service calling for rain, my New York buddies were all talking about the whopping deluge they’d just gotten.
Lyn painting the Fort Point lighthouse.
No painting trip to Maine is complete without a lighthouse, and my intention had been for us to paint the Grindle Point Lighthouse on Islesboro. Without knowing exactly when it would start raining, relying on ferry transportation seemed unwise. Instead we drove north to the Fort Point light, where my charges promptly spread themselves across a quarter mile of terrain to paint. That is why I take my bicycle while teaching, although since the grounds include the ruins of a Revolutionary War fort, a mountain bike might have worked better.
Loren learned that the cover on his truck leaks.
The rain held off until  we could regroup at the hotel for a demo, which I did using Sandy’s kit.
Elizabeth and Sandy did some foraging for the painters.
It’s always hard to use someone else’s paint, and I was complaining that hers mixed poorly. That was partially because it’s not good paint, but it turns out that dab of white at the left of her palette was sunscreen, not paint. I’m not asking why it was there.
Dedicated students watching a demo in the rain. “I learned that you oil painters have it easy,” said Virginia.
A demo is a great opportunity to reach painters of all levels. Earlier in the day, I’d talked to Cecilia and Nancy about a new way of setting up their paintings than straight-up drawing. Both are naturally good compositors, but this technique gives more consistent control over the outcome. I was able to demonstrate that.
Nancy’s first attempt at the view.
After a while, Nancy left and went back to her own balcony to finish a painting she’d started earlier. When she was done with that, she painted the same scene again. I loved seeing how she integrated what I’d told her, and how it made the second painting stronger.
Nancy’s post-demo painting of the same view.

Message me if you want information about next year’s programs. Information is available here.

Rain affects people differently. This is the artist formerly known as Brad.


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Let’s start at the very beginning

This is Janith’s second-ever painting, of tugboat reflections.

Lynn managed to find a place to paint where her feet could be in the water. Photo courtesy of Elizabeth Coghill.

My favorite places to paint are harbors. I love boats of all kinds, I love the rise and fall of the tide, I love the work that goes on in them. Set into the mouth of the Passagassawakeag River, Belfast harbor is as lovely as any harbor on the coast. It is Newark to Camden’s Manhattan: it’s more industrial and less gentrified.
This is Stacey’s second-ever painting, of the tugboats themselves. Whew, what a lot of drawing!

Marjean ran to the art store and bought herself a palette knife at lunchtime. Since it was new, she used it to cut the cheese before resuming painting. 

But boats are not easy to draw, let alone paint, and I have three absolute beginners in this workshop.
Brad floating on the dock.

I have two youngsters with us who are not properly part of the workshop but who are still painting. Here’s Ilse amid the foliage. Photo courtesy of Elizabeth Coghill.

A man and his son stopped to see Marjean and were dumbfounded when she said it was her second day painting. “She’s a ringer,” said the father. We laughed. Marjean has painted walls and windowsills and furniture, but never a painting.
And here’s Sophia with her grandmother, Virginia. Both girls are great young artists. Photo courtesy of Elizabeth Coghill.
This is Marjean’s second-ever painting, of the boats in the outer harbor.
But as I told him, painting is a learned process, not some kind of magic trick. If you can break down the process into manageable steps, your students do a lot less fumbling. The process differs in different media, but is remarkably similar in different styles. The same rules apply whether the end result is abstraction or fine detail: if you want the paint to stick and the composition to work, you approach painting in a methodical way.

Cecilia dealt with the comings and goings of boats by working on two paintings. When one boat disappeared, she picked up the other canvas.. Photo courtesy of Elizabeth Coghill.
Bernard attempted to recreate his missing boat from memory. Photo courtesy of Elizabeth Coghill.

Message me if you want information about next year’s programs. Information is available here.

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Where we meet the tide, and win (at least for yesterday).

Janith expresses my feelings exactly.
We started our painting week at the mouth of the Duck Trap River, which gave us several iconic Maine vistas—a rocky promontory, a shingle beach, small boats swinging on their lines, and a lovely old concrete bridge. The weather was superlative.
Nancy’s painting of Howe Point.
Marjean’s beautiful hat.
The first day of any workshop is dominated by questions of set-up, where new ideas meet old kits, or new painters learn to use their tools for the first time. This was exacerbated by having so many new painters in the group, but Sandy Quang is my monitor, and she helped get them all set up and working. I consider a first painting to be a success if the paint gets stuck to the canvas in a sensible order; everyone did that and much more.
Brad’s painting of the bridge and the Duck Trap River.
It’s very rare that I demo at the beginning of a workshop, but with so many new painters in the group, it made sense.
The tide presents questions of painting (as objects appear and disappear, and angles change) but the supermoon meant a supertide, and it was a thief. First it stole Hal’s belongings. Lyn went in after them, and rescued everything but his shoes. A team of friendly canoers kindly raced around the bar and saved his shoes. Then my umbrella went aloft and ended up in the drink. Hal returned the favor by diving in after it. My fault: I’ve already lost that umbrella once; in the Rio Grande, and I should have known to check that it was tethered. And the tide lifted two stuff sacks from Janith’s kit, too.

Dinghy, 8X6, oil on canvasboard, by me.
Critique session.
It’s a beautiful foggy morning today; my favorite for painting in harbors. And today we’ll be at Belfast’s public landing, so it is all working out perfectly.

Message me if you want information about next year’s programs. Information is available here.
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I must be out of my mind

Painting by the light of the moon in beautiful Belfast.
Next time I schedule a full moon, it’s going to be during midweek in my workshop. We tried, we really tried, but we were too befuddled by travel and packing and unpacking to paint last night. Still, it was a lot of fun wandering down to the beach and watching the moonlight sliver the waves.
Bernard Zellar’s watercolor.
Our biggest problem was battery failure. Stacey was using the flashlight app on her cellphone (an app which always cracks me up) and it killed her battery. Nancy’s flashlight battery died. My two halogen flashlights—which never run down their batteries—both went for an amble.
Ain’t it lovely?
Still, I know the position of my paints on my palette, so how hard could painting in the pitch dark be? I blocked in a lovely soft blue-black for the night sky. Someone danced by with a light, and I realized it was actually bright violet.
On top of traveling all day, we’d had a few glasses of wine on the deck. What a fantastic group!
“Sandy, why don’t you finish this for me?” So she did—also without a light. By 9:30 PM we were all ready to call it a night. Tomorrow is the official first day of painting, and we want to be fresh for it.
Message me if you want information about next year’s programs. Information is available here.