fbpx

Category: Mid-coast Maine

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

The best fan mail

Three watercolors done by Shirley last October. I can’t wait to see what she does in Maine this October! 
The greatest compliment to an instructor is to have a student sign up again for another year. While I was in Camden last week, I learned that Shirley, a student from last October’s Irondequoit Inn program, will be joining me in Maine this October.
Shirley is darn intrepid. She let us put her in the bottom of a canoe and paddle through a choppy lake and a maze of streams until we reached a beaver dam and had to back our way out. I promise right here and now we won’t be doing that again.
Shirley letting us take her for a canoe ride…
But I also promise that the food—of such high caliber at last year’s workshop—is at least as good this year in Maine.
Shirley has a BFA from Syracuse University and was a prizewinner at the second annual Chautauqua National Exhibition. (In the spirit of things coming full circle, I participated in two Chautauqua National shows myself, a few decades later.)
To balance her out there are three novice painters signed up for the October session—and a couple of additional openings, one of which probably has your name on it. She’s a lovely person, and you’d enjoy being in class with her.
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

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!
Posted on

Day One at Camden Plein Air

Unfinished, Mt. Battie from Camden Harbor. Will either finish it or scrape it out tomorrow.
The first day at Camden Plein Air dawned with great atmospherics—a light drizzle that had fizzled out by 10 AM. Threatened thunderstorms failed to materialize, and scudding clouds to the north over Mount Battie made for a constantly changeable sky.
Painting with a peanut gallery.
I’ve wanted to paint Mount Battie from the harbor since I’ve been coming to Camden.  I’m not sure what I think of this attempt; it’s accurate enough but the composition isn’t doing anything for me. Before I turn it into a floor tile, I’ll take it back to the harbor in the morning and see if I can do something with the lighting.
And then someone either goes and docks a boat right in the middle of your view, or removes one that was critical to your painting…
I met a new friend today, Renee Lammers, who paints on copper panels. She shared a sandwich with me; we watched each other’s backs quite contentedly.
Painting from the deck of a boat has been on my bucket list for years, so when someone offered me the opportunity to try it this week, I agreed enthusiastically. It will require a still day, but I’m excited about the possibility.
An early bedtime tonight!

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

On the road again

Eco-Warrior 1: my new backpack for Camden Plein Air.

I’ve been home in Rochester just long enough to scrub the tub, check the mail, and break my printer. This morning I’m en route back to Maine. Since this is a painting trip rather than a teaching one, I’ve got two passengers with me—my entire IT department, in fact. (Note to burglars: don’t assume the Duchy has been left defenseless. When I got home from Maine last weekend it was to find two new young people had moved in. Empty, my house has more occupants than the average American household.)

I’m headed up to beautiful Camden to paint in 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 will gather to paint 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.
Eco-Warrior 2: two bikes, my painting kit, luggage and a cooler for three, a bass guitar, and three adult-size human beings. I’ll buy a Tesla when it can do this.
I have wanted to bring my bike to Maine all summer, but could never think up a good excuse to justify it. (The drag on my bike rack cuts my mileage slightly.) This paint-out is the perfect excuse. The contents of my backpack fit perfectly in the plastic milk crate on the back, and I anticipate a week of joyfully pedaling from painting site to painting site.
Because I’m not teaching, I think I’ll be able to blog in real time, but I will be posting a little later in the day than usual.
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!