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Monday Morning Art School: painting and flying

"Dome of Light," 12X9, available through Sedona Arts Center.

I’m in Sedona, AZ for the 18th annual Sedona Plein Air Festival. My friend Jennifer mocks my packing list as unnecessarily exhaustive. However, it’s meant to be a complete list from which you choose what’s appropriate. For example, I bring foul-weather gear on my schooner workshops, but not dress clothes. This week, I brought a dress but no foul-weather gear. True to form, it rained yesterday.

“That’s all just materials and tools,” I hastened to tell a woman at the airport who watched me struggle with two large suitcases and a carry-on, her lips pursed. “Do I look like a person who owns three suitcases full of clothing?”

"Crescent Moon, Dawn," 9X12, available through Sedona Arts Center.

At home I drive a full-size pickup truck and have more than 500 square feet of studio space. Here, my tools are crammed into a rental car. I don’t have the luxury of bringing everything I might want.

Travel is always a compromise between canvas size and practicality. I like to paint big, but the largest thing I can pack in a suitcase is 16/20 (in a very narrow frame). I’m carrying four sizes here in Sedona (16/20, 11/14, 9/12, and 8/16) and that’s too many. The less variation in size, the easier it is to pack.

Every art material comes with a Safety Data Sheet (SDS), an exhaustive document that is, for the most part, irrelevant to you as an artist. What matters is the flash point, which is in section nine, Physical and Chemical Properties. This tells you what you can and cannot fly with. A flash point at or below 140° F (60° C) indicates it is a flammable liquid and may not be carried in airline baggage.

"Buckboard," 11X14, Carol L. Douglas, available through Sedona Arts Center.

You’ll have to hunt, but all vendors are required to provide SDS for every product.

Not all solvents are created equal. Turpenoid has a flash point of 129° F (54° C), so it can’t fly. Gamsol’s flash point is 144°F (62°C) so it’s safe. I buy a fresh pint and wrap it in its SDS with the flash point highlighted.

My favorite painting medium (Grumbacher Quick Dry) has a flash point of 140° F, meaning it can’t fly. After buying countless bottles of it after the road that were ditched after using only a few drops, I switched to using linseed oil as a medium. That sacrifices dry time for convenience, but it hasn’t been a problem. Again, I wrap the bottle in its SDS with the flash point (500° F) highlighted.

A small tube of oil paint is 37 ml. or 1.25 oz, so is safe for your carry-on. A large tube is 150 ml., or 5 oz. It must be checked or it will be confiscated. I pack this handy label with my oil paints. Watercolor tubes are tiny and harmless, but the only trouble I’ve ever had flying with paints was with watercolors. An inspector at Heathrow dumped them back into my checked luggage without putting them in their plastic container. My clothes were stained on my return home.

A glowering sky yesterday morning.

It’s very easy to forget your brushes in the heat of travel, and dried brushes are unredeemable. If you can do nothing else, rinse them thoroughly in solvent and wipe them down until you can treat them properly.

Most accommodations don’t have utility sinks. I sometimes take my brushes into the shower, where the force of the water clears away all lingering pigments. That’s not practical in places where water is a luxury. There, I use a superfatted soap and clean all residue from the sink when I’m done.

There are a number of portable painting racks, including RayMar’s DryAngle, but when painting in a festival, I simply snap the painting into its frame. If it doesn’t sell, it can travel home like that. Unframed work gets separated with waxed paper, taped together, and packed in my checked luggage. As long as the paint isn’t too thick, it won’t be harmed.

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I’m rich!

The Rocks Remain, 16X20, $2029, available through Sedona Arts Center.

Flying west from a tiny town in northern New England lacks charm. You get up at an unearthly hour, drive to a bus depot, and head to Logan. It complicates the already-dismal nature of air travel to have to start at 2 AM.

I live in one of America’s beauty spots. Why I’d spend 21 hours to get to another beauty spot is a mystery of wanderlust and economics, but apparently it works. I do it with frequency.

Rim Light, 16X20, $2029, available through Sedona Arts Center.

The trips themselves can make me grumpy. Yesterday, I was in Phoenix, consoling myself in my friends’ kitchen with chocolate when my phone rang. It was Eric Jacobsen, calling to wish me well at the 18th Annual Sedona Plein Air. That’s what’s brought me to Arizona.

Eric’s a great listener. I’d made an error in my car reservation and it ended up costing me a thousand bucks. My frames were dinged in transit. That sets the break-even hurdle at this event higher than I’m comfortable with.

He reminded me that blessings are not always linear, but they are guaranteed. That was an indirect way of pointing out my true wealth: I’m surrounded by people of great intellect and compassion.

Falling Tide, 11X14, $1087, available through Cape Ann Plein Air.

My old pal Ed Buonvecchio, formerly of Manchester, Maine, has been watching for my paints. They’re traveling here by UPS. As of this morning, they still haven’t arrived, but I have a small reserve in my kit. Ed was my monitor at my 2022 workshop in Sedona and I’m hoping he’ll do next year’s, too. (It’s called Towards Amazing Color, and it sold out last year.)

As I mentioned Monday, frames make me nuts. Ed’s a dab hand at woodworking, and he’s offered to help me mend my damaged frames. That’s a generous offer, since he is also painting in this event. But that’s Ed; he has a heart a mile wide.

Dawn Wind, Twin Lights, 9X12, $869, available through Cape Ann Plein Air.

It seems like I always land in Phoenix at rush hour. That puts me on Interstate 10 just in time to sit in traffic. “I fail to see any beauty in this landscape,” I grumbled. I felt better when I arrived at my friends’ house. I’ve known Jim and Ellen since our salad days. That’s a uniquely comfortable relationship that involves knowing each other’s secrets but electing to not disclose them. I felt even better when we went out for dinner and Jim picked up the check.

After a too-short visit, I was northbound to Sedona on US 17. There’s a point around Black Canyon City where you cross a ridge, the saguaro cactuses giving way to the conifers of higher elevations. “This is the most beautiful place in the world!” I exclaimed.

And thereafter, every ridge I crossed was tinged with loveliness—not simple grandeur, but the ineffable beauty of Creation. My pulse quickened. I’m uniquely blessed, because wherever I am is at that moment the most beautiful place in the world.

True wealth is in being surrounded with good people. It’s also in not coveting anything but simply experiencing it in the moment. I’m happy to be here, as I have been happy to be in all the places it’s been my good fortune to visit. When I get home, I’ll be equally happy to be in my little farmhouse on Richards Hill.

By the way, paintings from Cape Ann Plein Air are up and for sale. There is work available from some of the best plein air artists in America. Buy early; buy often!

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Art-vs.-Life is a false dichotomy

High Plains, 8x10, oil on canvas, available unframed, $522

By now, most of us have read about two Just Stop Oil activists who threw tomato soup over Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers at the National Gallery in London. They’re part of a growing trend of annoying young people gluing themselves to the frames of great art and gallery walls in protest against petroleum culture.

They ought to be gluing themselves to a gas pump where they’d be addressing their actual enemy; oil paintings are generally made with flax-seed oil. However, they’d doubtless be ignored or worse, as their sit-down protests in roads have mostly just infuriated British drivers. In a gallery, they’re sure to get attention.

Sedona, 8X10, oil on canvas, Carol Douglas, private collection

“What is worth more, art or life?” said one of the lasses, Phoebe Plummer, 21, from London. “Is it worth more than food? More than justice? Are you more concerned about the protection of a painting or the protection of our planet and people?

Mankind has always recognized that there’s a physical world and a non-physical world and that the borders are fuzzy. Descartes wrote “cogito, ergo sum” (I think, therefore I am) to prove to himself that he really existed. Cartesian dualism rests on the idea that there are tangible things, and there are intangible things, and that we humans are a combination of the two. Generations of spotty teenagers, myself included, have pondered Descartes’ question. The idea that reality isn’t real is tailor-made for adolescents.

Apparently, Plummer missed all that. Otherwise, she’d know that art isn’t separate from life any more than food or justice are. It’s part of thinking, and that’s part of life as much as checking the gas meter.

Van Gogh was just 37 years old when he died, either by suicide or murder. The vast majority of his 900 paintings were finished in the last two years of life as he grappled with crippling mental illness. That period of suffering paradoxically gave us a legacy of paintings that’s unparalleled in human history. Through his work, Van Gogh lives on.

The Rocks Remain, 16X20, is one of two pictures going with me to Sedona Arts Center. I'll post a better photo later.

I’m a reader. That takes me to alternate worlds and different viewpoints and realities, all possible through the artistry of the writer. Are those worlds more or less real than my physical one? The answer, I suppose, depends on when you ask me.

Marcel Proust addressed this question in Remembrance of Things Past, that monumental opus that we all talk about but seldom read. “(A)s many original artists as there are, so many worlds are at our disposal, differing more widely from each other than those which roll round the infinite and which, whether their name be Rembrandt or Vermeer, send us their unique rays many centuries after the hearth from which they emanate is extinguished.” The knowledge thus gained, he said, is something different from the “practical ends which we falsely call life.”

Rim Light, 16X20, is one of two paintings going with me to Sedona. I'll post a better image later.

It's an unexamined life that makes us so prone to excess consumption, exacerbating the petroleum problem. By no measures are American adults healthy. More than 37 million of us take antidepressants, more than 40% of us are obese, and 77% of us worry about money. A little more reading, writing, drawing, painting and thinking and a little less shopping would make us all happier.

By the way, the wise old souls at the National Gallery had protected the painting, and only the frame sustained minor damage.

I’m writing this en route to Sedona, AZ, for the 18th annual Sedona Plein Air Festival. It’s the last event of my season, and I’m excited about all the rocks I get to paint this coming week!

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Monday Morning Art School: buying frames

This is my painting Stone wall, salt marshes in a Canadian-style frame. They're almost impossible to get in the US.

I woke up one morning in a surfeit of gold, hating gold plein air frames. This is partly my friend Poppy Balser’s fault. “You Americans love those heavy gold frames, but Canadian buyers think they look cheap,” she said. Well, dang.

Frames are my bête noire. I have a garage full of them, and yet, seemingly, never the right one. If you have a painting in black, the buyer wants gold—or vice-versa. And they ding easily. I’ve lost count of the paintings I’ve gotten back from shows with the protective corners missing.

This is my current favorite frame, a simple chop I buy from Omega, on a painting called Drying Sails.

Last week I wrote a guide to buying art supplies online. “What about framing?” a reader asked. I asked several professional artists to chime in. Here are their suggestions.

Don’t dismiss your local option, like Primrose Framing in Rockland. “I have my local frame shop build me simple frames, simply the four pieces of wood mitered together, from their stock,” said Bobbi Heath. “These are comparable in price to the other sources, and convenient.”

I buy frames and chops (lengths of moulding) from Omega Moulding. The quality is excellent and they have an exhaustive catalog, but they require a business account. They’ve recently limited what they’ll send by freight up to my neck of the woods, so sometimes I have to have things drop-shipped to my daughter in New York. That’s not always handy.

I’ve also purchased unfinished framing stock from Vermont Hardwoods and built my own. That’s the most beautiful option, but I don’t have time these days.

A number of my peers recommended JFM. They require a state resale certificate, as do most wholesale vendors. Chrissy Pahucki likes them “especially for panoramic sizes. I like to save their very sturdy boxes for shipping paintings too.”

They’re Lynn Mehta’s go-to as well. “Their price point isn’t too bad. They have a pretty wide selection of ready-made sizes as well as custom.” Natalia Andreeva and Eric Jacobsen also endorse them.

A traditional gold plein air frame from Florida Frames (photo courtesy Bobbi Heath).

“I also really like King of Frame,” Lynn said. “Some of their frames are really beautiful. I’m always looking for low-profile moulding which isn’t too heavy and preferably closed corners. Both companies have a good selection. Also, the customer service at both of these companies is wonderful.” Eric Jacobsen and Ken DeWaard also like King of Frame. “King of Frames has many of the same styles as Omega,” Jane Chapin noted.

Ken suggested San Diego Frame. They also require a resale certificate, but Ken says they’ve provided a good-quality product. “I used to make my own,” he said, “but I’m not ready to go back down that road yet.”

Bobbi Heath and Jane Chapin recommended Florida Frames, although Jane likes them for chops only. Bobbi also likes varnished wood contemporary frames from Frame Destination. And she points out something that’s true of all frame sellers: “Buying multiples in each size lowers the cost and combines the shipping.” That’s one reason professional plein air artists end up working on standard-sized boards. It’s also how I ended up with a garage full of frames.

Don’t dismiss the big-box art supply retailers. “I also use Dick Blick Simplon black frames with a gold liner for more standard sizes because they ship pretty fast,” said Crissy Pahucki.

“I just ordered some frames from Jerry’s Artarama Museum Collection on another artist’s recommendation,” said Lynn Mehta. “When you go on the site look for museum quality frames and in particular the artist frames, not the plein air. The big bonus he pointed out is that Jerry’s offers free shipping.

“They look pretty good, in my opinion. Solid frames. Came in their own boxes, like Omega Frames, and wrapped in a bubble-wrap envelop.

“Heavy as can be, though. I'm not a fan of heavy frames. Heavy for me to ship and heavy to haul around. I will buy them again if I need a frame in a hurry. But I don't want to stock up on them.”

Natalia Andreeva buys frames from Jerry’s, too. She also points out that antique and second-hand stores are a great source for frames.

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Dealing with criticism

Best Buds, 11x14, $1087, oil on canvasboard, available here.

This week I received another unsolicited critique. No, I’m not going to repeat it to you.

I recently heard about someone who saves hate mail to a designated file; they can be referenced if needed. ‘If needed’ is a chilling commentary on our times. Anyways, I’m not tough enough to keep corrosive cankers on my hard drive. I just complain to whoever’s nearby and delete them.

That hasn’t always been the case. When I received my first negative review, I cried for two days.

Apple Tree with Swing, oil on canvas, $2029 framed, available here.

Once you stick your head over the parapet and become any kind of public figure (and I’m not much of one) you start to get the occasional brickbat thrown your way. It’s going to come in the form of obnoxious messages and comments, bad reviews, or old-fashioned snark.

That’s no reason to not try to excel, but it does give me pause when thinking about the lives of famous people. Mixed in with the adulation is acid. It’s very easy to forget that these are actual people with feelings, rather than mere players in a public spectacle.

More to the point is the complaints that volunteer organizers regularly receive about events. How often do we consider the humanity of the person who arranged for tables, chairs, rain tents, food, jurying, etc. when we start kvetching about the labels and the lights?

In Control (Grace and her Unicorn), 24X30, $3,478, oil on canvas, available here.

The spectacular achievement of putting together a sustainable cultural event has been on my mind this year. Perhaps it’s because I count several such organizers among my friends. I’ve watched how hard they’ve worked.

One of them started her event fifteen years ago and has since handed over the reins. She still gets called regularly for routine tasks and questions. Another started her event this year. She’s small but tough, and that’s a good thing. She must have sent out ten thousand emails and answered a thousand questions by the time she was done. Not all of them were kind.

Beautiful Dream (Rockport Harbor), oil on canvasboard, 12X16 $1,449.00 framed, available here.

My dog is the mildest of creatures. He’s trained to heel, and he’s on a radio collar to remind him if he messes up. Still, I’ll occasionally encounter someone on the trail who hates or fears dogs. The other day, we passed a woman who snatched up her toddler and turned away, a horrible grimace on her face. Perhaps she was actually afraid, but what she was signaling was raw, palpable anger.

For the remaining 45 minutes of our hike, neither Doug nor I was in a good mood. We were waspish with each other and with the dog. That experience reminded me of how easily hostility is passed from person to person.

Constructive criticism is one thing, but snark has more to do with the critic’s internal settings than any real problems. If possible, just hit the delete button and purge it from your internal hard drive. Studies show that forgiveness is not just a religious mandate; it’s good for your health.

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Buying art supplies in a shopping desert

Blown off my feet, 16×20, $2029, available through Cape Ann Plein Air

When I was in Cape Ann last week, I broke my brush washing tank. (It retaliated by dousing me with filthy mineral spirits.) Eric Jacobsen took me to a neat little art store in Beverly called Art Supplies Wholesale. Alas, they don’t sell metal tanks. “No matter,” I said, and asked Rae O’Shea for a jam jar. I can replace the tank this week at home.

I live in an area with a great assortment of art stores nearby. There’s Rockport Blueprint in Camden, Fiddlehead in Belfast, Salt Bay in Damariscotta, and Artist & Craftsman in Portland. If you live where there are art stores, for heaven’s sake patronize them. There may come a time when you need something fast, and you’ll be grateful for that shop around the corner. And the price spread between online shopping and your local store is not as large as you think.

The Surf is Cranking Up, 8×16, $903, available through Cape Ann Plein Air

Some of us don’t have that luxury. I got this letter from a painter in Kansas:

“My oils are in dire shape and I would like to order new paint. I would like your advice on where I should order art supplies. My town is a shopping desert, there is only a Walmart here. Basically, we are at the mercy of ordering everything online.

“I drove to a Michaels in another town this past weekend and looked at what they had, but it was very limited. What are some good online resources to restock my oils?”

Those big-box craft stores sometimes surprise me; for example, I needed acrylic paint and brushes in another small town and the big-box craft store carried Golden. That’s my preferred brand. But in general, what craft stores carry in stock (vs. what’s on their website) is insufficient for serious painting. Worse, you have to navigate aisles of silk flowers, stamps and beads to get to it.

Peaceful tidal pool, 9X12, $869
Peaceful tidal pool, 9X12, $869,

Art supplies are a fairly large industry in the US, with $819.0m in sales expected this year. As a category, it’s in decline, whereas its cousin, arts and craft supplies, is growing. That tells you where most people shop.

There are three major art suppliers online: Dick Blick, Jerry’s Artarama, and Cheap Joe’s. All three concentrate on offering an enormous array of options at the lowest possible prices. That makes them great for the person who knows what they’re looking for, but can be a trap for the uninitiated. That’s one reason that teachers should write and maintain a good supply list.

Walnut tree, stone wall, 8X16, $903, available through Cape Ann Plein Air

Dakota Art Pastels specializes in only one line of products-pastels, pastel papers and pastel pencils. Their approach is very different; they share information about pastel hardness and allow you to buy samplers of different brands before you commit to a pricey set. Theirs is one of the few websites I boot around on just for fun.

Then there are specialist stores like Rochester Art Supply, which would be my go-to for encaustics. These stores combine a strong local presence and a good internet sales base.

Stone Wall, Salt Marshes, 14×18, $1594, available through Cape Ann Plein Air

Paradoxically, if you just need one item and have Amazon Prime, it can be your cheapest solution. Again, you need to know exactly what you’re looking for, as they often sell deceptive knock-offs. See my post about how Google drives viewers toward flawed Meeden pochade boxes.

There are some products you must buy directly from the vendors. I use RGH paints, made by Rolf Haerem and his assistant in a little shop in Colonie, NY. Panel Pak wet painting carriers and most pochade boxes are items that come directly from vendors. Some online vendors carry limited supplies of fine products-Raymar art boards and Rosemary and Co. brushes are two examples. However, the full lines can only be accessed directly from the manufacturers themselves.

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Monday Morning Art School: stop seeing your peers as competitors

Dawn Wind, Twin Lights, 9X12, Carol L. Douglas, available through Cape Ann Plein Air.

Driving home from Cape Ann Plein Air (CAPA), I listened to an episode of The Side Hustle Show featuring a sobriety podcaster called Gill Tietz. She said, “stop seeing your peers as competitors; see them as marketing partners instead.”

That’s exactly why plein air festivals like CAPA work. Obviously, we’re competitors for prizes and sales. More importantly, we’re working together to create a market for art. Nobody is going to visit the Rockport Golf Club to see five paintings by Carol Douglas. But they will drive there to see 175 paintings by 35 artists from across the US. There’s strength in numbers.

Seafoam, 9x12, Carol L. Douglas, available through Cape Ann Plein Air.

That principle works across business models. Public markets are a great example of small farmers who band together to punch above their individual weight. Yes, the guy selling organic lamb is competing against the guy selling chicken, but together they manage to lighten my wallet by a considerable sum.

Unbalanced competition can undo this model; there is nothing as depressing as a shopping mall with half its stores shuttered. We can’t say exactly why, but none of us like to go there.

The stretch of coastal Maine in which I live is known for its concentration of galleries. Nobody would drive here for just one gallery, but they come in their tens of thousands for the whole scene.

That has an impact beyond just attracting buyers. It attracts other artists to the community. There were four painters at Cape Ann from my own little stretch of seaside—Tom Bucci of Camden, Ken DeWaard of Hope, Eric Jacobsen of Thomaston, and me. None of us are native Mainers; all of us relocated here to live and work.

Falling Tide, 11X14, Carol Douglas, available through Cape Ann Plein Air.

In general, artists do the collegial thing very well. Of course, we all know artists who love to crow about their own work, who make cutting comments, or who slyly bend the rules. Unless they’re undercutting the event, ignore them; they’re working from a position of insecurity.

I like to paint with Eric, Ken and Björn Runquist. It’s always entertaining. Sometimes it’s the push I need to get out the door at all. Painting together can also be a form of peer-mentoring.

We think of mentorship as giving help and advice to a less experienced, younger person, but it also happens between peers. It can be as simple as Kirk Larson showing me a video light he carries to offset bad lighting, or as deep as talking a buddy through a bad patch. My students have a peer-mentoring group on Facebook that gives fantastic support and guidance.

Fishing Shacks, Carol L. Douglas, 11X14, private collection

For this model to work, the green-eyed beast of envy must be stomped down and never allowed to return. “That’s easier said than done,” you might say, but it’s really just a question of controlling your own thinking. When you find yourself feeling jealous of another artist, firmly set those thoughts aside and move on. If they return, do it again. Envy is really just a bad habit that can be broken. It impedes your creative process.

There will always be someone who does a better painting, wins more prizes, or sells more work. If he or she isn’t at this show, they’ll be at the next one. Judging and sales are often style-driven and subjective, so you’ll go nuts trying to assess your own worth based on what someone else is doing.

 

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It’s a wrap, more or less

I have to choose five paintings for jurying out of this mishmosh...

In the deep woods, the gender differences in the pipi sauvage, the business of peeing in open spaces, is reduced. Men’s clothing is designed for it; modern women’s clothes are not. (Yes, I have a SheWee; it’s more trouble than it’s worth.)

Laugh if you will, but this is a serious issue for women plein air painters. In the deep woods we can find privacy. In cities, there are coffee shops. On a 40-yard slope of open granite shelves, with the ocean on one side and luxurious homes on the other, the pipi sauvage is a man’s game.

Eventually, I found a small thicket of rose bushes. Unfortunately, I also dropped my keys without noticing.

Painting in Wednesday's rain. (Photo courtesy Mitch Baird)

“I’m so sick of painting lavender skies,” Janet Sutherland said. I laughed, because it’s also my go-to solution for making grey days interesting. Eric Jacobsen’s was to set up a dead-seagull still life. It’s a beautiful painting in the manner of Jamie Wyeth, but ‘it needs a special buyer’ as we say delicately about paintings that are unlikely to ever sell.

That’s why all of us at Cape Ann Plein Air (CAPA) were all thrilled to awaken Thursday to crystalline skies and clement air. I went to Cathedral Rocks, where I found Jonathan McPhillips, Mark Fernandez, Eric Jacobsen, and Mitch Baird. By eleven, I was regretting my long pants (which Rae O’Shea had kindly laundered for me). Now, this was October weather!

Eric Jacobsen arranging a still life at Pigeon Cove. Poor juvenile gull.

By the time I was done with two paintings, my fellows had all wandered off to find subjects elsewhere. That’s when I realized I’d lost my keys. I backtracked and searched under rocks and shrubs, praying hard. They were right where I’d dropped them.

That was the start of a day of small snafus. None of them had major consequences, but all required backtracking, searching, and recalibrating. That’s just a sign of being tired, which is to be expected after a week of very long hours. The 35 artists in this show are blessed to do this for a living, and even more blessed to be in this prestigious event, but painting is also hard work.

On Thursday evening, we painted nocturnes in downtown Gloucester. I have a hard time with night painting, as my bedtime is 7:30 PM. And I was suffering from a preconceived idea (which is seldom good in plein air). It was born of the unseasonably-cold weather and Halloween decorations around town. I wanted to paint a ghost.

Rae O’Shea kept me company. It’s not one of my most brilliant paintings (if I can be said to have ever painted a brilliant painting), but we had a great time figuring out how one paints a ghost. And if anyone says, “that’s not plein air!” I challenge them to prove that wasn’t what we saw.

Jonathan McPhillips at Cathedral Rocks.

I wish I had more days to paint, because the schooner wharf at Harbor Loop is stunning—all cross angles and swooping curves. Unfortunately, we hand in our paintings today. I think I’ll take a small (9x12) canvas and frame into town with me. If I can sneak in one more painting before the flag goes down, I’ll do it.

My ghoulie set-up.

Not that this is a practical idea. I’ve already done a dozen paintings, with one wipe-out. The last thing I need is another. However, everywhere I turn, I see something else I need to paint. The combination of limpid autumn light, crashing surf, fishing fleets, and beautiful old buildings has me in visual overload.

The paintings from CAPA will be online later today. I will post an addendum as soon as I have a link.

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We’re all in this together

Surf at Bass Rocks, 16x20, by Carol L. Douglas

Autumn, I like to tell visitors, is the most beautiful season in New England. This year is determined to make a liar out of me. It was wet and cold during my watercolor sailing workshop. Here at Cape Ann Plein Air (CAPA) neither the wind nor sky have cooperated.

Natalia Andreeva saw me shivering in my fleece, thermal vest and flannel shirt. She added her windbreaker, tying the hood tightly over my head. “Keep it for the week,” she said. I’ve taken her up on the offer so seriously I’m almost sleeping in it. It’s sad when a woman from Tallahassee has to dress a woman from Maine for cold weather.

Surf at Bass Rocks, I'm guessing about 16X20, by Eric Jacobsen.

Although these events are competitions, painters are overwhelmingly kind to one another. Stewart White learned the hard way that his rental car has a bum charging system. Kirk Larsen had jumper cables and fired the thing back up in a field at Allyn Cox Reservation. I saw Stewart yesterday at the Essex Shipbuilding Museum with a small portable charger in his hand. “I’ve learned how to open the hood,” he said cheerfully.

The howling winds have resulted in spectacular rollers and breakers. My Maine town is protected from raging seas by Penobscot Bay, so these waves are a real treat. However, the wind is an ergonomic problem, as it makes the canvas vibrate, when it isn’t just flipping away in the wind. Yesterday, Eric Jacobsen, Mitch Baird and I found a deep cleft in Bass Rocks in which to set up like three little monkeys in a row. That meant we were all painting the same view.

That really didn’t matter, as we’re very different painters. I find this distracting at times, as I really would rather paint like Mitch or Eric or my buddy Ken DeWaard. I’m always tempted to copy off their papers.

Surf at Bass Rocks, about 12x16, by Mitch Baird.

Even when we start with the same fundamental composition, we put the marks down in our own individual ways. That scribing is the actual meat of the painting; the rocks and crashing seas are just the subject. I’ve found that painters are often uncomfortable with their own handwriting. Done right, it says something deeply personal about us.

The great conundrum of painting is that it’s supposed to be revelatory, but we creators frequently don’t like what we see in our own work. A psychoanalyst could have a field day with that.

“The essential thing,” Henri Matisse wrote, “is to put oneself in a frame of mind which is close to that of prayer.” Apparently, Matisse’s friends were quieter than mine. I’m a mutterer; Eric is a fixer; Mitch is more of a self-flagellator.

The good thing about painting in these conditions is that you can’t overthink what you’re doing. You just do it, wipe the salt spray off your face, and do it again. Sooner or later, something is bound to work.

Our set-up. The fuzziness is sea spray.

“A picture must possess a real power to generate light and for a long time now I’ve been conscious of expressing myself through light or rather in light,” Matisse also wrote. In the following century, that became the major mantra of painters: we’re not painting objects, we’re painting light.

That’s great as long as the light cooperates, but this week has been one of morose and glowering skies. We’re all struggling against it. But cranky seas and skies are very much a part of the maritime tradition of Gloucester and Maine, as evidenced by so many of Winslow Homer’s paintings.

It’s raining now, and I’ll take the morning to frame and enter my paintings onto CAPA’s online system. Rae O’Shea just stopped by on her way out to take photos. “They’re talking frigid temperatures on the weekend, and possible flurries,” she said.

Why didn’t I bring my winter jacket?

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The game is afoot

Surf at Cape Hedge, 9X12, Carol L. Douglas, available through Cape Ann Plein Air. All of these photos were taken under incandescent light this morning, so the color may not be true.

Back when I was raising children, they used to say (jokingly, I hope) that the oldest one was an experiment. You should throw that one out and try again once you knew something about parenting. That’s not true about my kids, but it is often true about my painting. I should have remembered that in the cold and rain the first morning at Cape Ann Plein Air (CAPA).

I blame it on trawler envy. We have fishing boats in Maine, but nothing like these big factories of the sea that they have in Gloucester. I took a moment to say thanks for all the fish of the ocean that feed so many of us. Then I set to work on the Jodrey State Fish Pier with Elaine Lisle and Richard Sneary.

Surf at Bass Rocks. 8X16, Carol L. Douglas, available through Cape Ann Plein Air.

The mizzle began to solidify into something resembling rain, so Dick (a watercolorist) packed up his easel and left. Elaine stayed and finished a lovely, bright, 10X10 square of the harbor. I struggled on until 1 PM, when—cold, wet and in need of a bathroom—I folded. Looking back at that start, I wish I’d quit hours earlier. The color and brushwork are fine. The composition violates my first rule of painting: don’t be boring.

I’ve been living in Maine long enough for its sedate driving habits to wear off my New York edges. I was dithering in an intersection when my phone rang. It was Eric Jacobsen. “Where are you?” he asked.

“Trying to turn onto Bass Avenue, and about to be killed by these fast Massachusetts drivers,” I muttered. Okay, that’s a paraphrase.

“Well, don’t do that,” he said in a reasonable voice. “Charles Newman, Mitch Baird, and I are at Bass Rocks. Come over here.”

That was all I needed to escape my slough of despond. Rocks, surf, and good company. The game, as Mr. Holmes said, was afoot.

Bass Rocks, 9X12, Carol L. Douglas, available through Cape Ann Plein Air.

CAPA’s quick draw is immensely popular, drawing about a hundred non-juried artists in addition to those of us in the juried show. This year it was at the Allyn Cox Reservation in Essex, which must be a beautiful property when you can stand upright to see it. My goal was simply to survive the gale force winds. I set up next to Jonathan McPhillips as he’s big, and I thought he’d be a good windbreak. I set my easel as low to the ground as I could. As soon as I saw Jonathan’s block-in, I knew he had a winner. It was a wonderful composition.

Stone Wall, 8X16, Carol L. Douglas, available through Cape Ann Plein Air.

Winds like those mean wild surf, so Eric, Mitch and I set off for Cape Hedge. It was difficult to paint, but all that dashing, crashing water made it so worthwhile. We worked small, because anything else would have blown away.

I know that Mondays are usually an art lesson, but I haven’t got it in me this morning. I’ll leave you with this utterly prosaic truth: if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. My first painting was horrible. My second was acceptable. My third was interesting, my fourth (quick draw) made me happy, and I really like my fifth one. Today is a new morning, and I’m off to beat the sunrise.  Later, friends.