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Monday Morning Art School: what is fine art?

High Surf, 12X16, oil on prepared birch painting surface, $1159 includes shipping and handling in continental US.

What is fine art?

Fine art serves no practical purpose. Itā€™s created for its aesthetic value and emotional impact rather than to do anything useful.

Calling something ā€˜fine artā€™ is not an assessment of quality. Something can be utter dreck and still fall under the heading of fine art, and fine craft is frequently better-executed than fine art.

The line between fine art and other disciplines is blurry. For example, Norman Rockwell and N.C. Wyeth were primarily illustrators, but theyā€™re also considered among the best painters of their generation. And by any narrow definition of purpose, most pre-Renaissance painters would be lumped in with illustrators, since one of their main goals was to explain and amplify the Bible. What is fine art, then, is a difficult question to answer.

Sunset over Cadillac Mountain, oil on archival canvasboard, $869 includes shipping and handling.

What is the difference between fine art and commercial art?

The primary difference between fine art and commercial art is intent.

While fine and commercial art are both tools of communication, fine artā€™s focus is emotional, visual, and intellectual. Commercial art is made to sell a product, service, or idea. It is functional.

Fine art generally seeks to speak to its audience one-on-one, whereas commercial art is directed towards markets.

Fine art is judged on creativity, expression, technical skill, and its intellectual underpinnings. The individual artist and his or her vision is paramount. That means fine artists have the freedom to produce work that nobody cares about (although thatā€™s likely to result in penury) whereas commercial artists generally work under another personā€™s guidelines and requirements.

Camden Harbor from Curtis Island, oil on canvas, $2782 unframed includes shipping and handling in continental United States.

Do fine art and commercial art use the same media?

There is no distinction between what is used in fine art and what is used in commercial art, although certain media (for example oil painting or lost wax casting) are more suited towards fine art. Other media (for example, neon or digital imaging) are more suited toward commercial art.

Belfast Harbor, oil on archival canvasboard, 14X18, $1,275 unframed includes shipping and handling in continental United States.

What is the difference between fine art and fine craft?

The line between fine art and fine craft is even squishier. Traditionally, fine craft creates functional objects, although that has never been absolute. Grinling Gibbons was Britainā€™s most celebrated woodcarver. He was an excellent businessman and much of his work falls firmly in the area of fine craft. However, he also produced amazing confections in lime wood that transcend any purpose.

Since both fine art and fine craft can create decorative objects, the distinction is usually a matter of focus.  Fine craft is said to emphasize skill and technique, whereas fine art emphasizes ideas.

The most comfortable distinction is in media. Fine craft includes ceramics, glasswork, textiles, woodworking, goldsmithing and other disciplines where the materials are critical to the results.

Which is best?

Since the 18th century, critics and gallerists have tried to rebrand fine art as an intellectual discipline, (although its practitioners generally remain stubbornly practical). Because of this, fine craft, illustration and commercial art have been perceived as lower art forms. This is an absurd distinction, and one that has led us to the worst excesses of conceptual art.

I’ve been both a commercial and fine artist, and I pursue some crafts. None is inherently better than another; it’s all a question of what you’re called to do.

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

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How to start collecting art

The Pine Tree State, 6X8, oil on archival canvasboard, $435 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

I have a wicked TJ Maxx habit. Itā€™s all fun and games until one of my kids pulls me into the so-called ā€˜wall artā€™ section. Thatā€™s mostly dreck, and itā€™s not cheap. A savvy customer could buy real art for just a little bit more money, and end up with an asset that appreciates, rather than something destined for a landfill.

Many young people havenā€™t a clue how to start collecting art. Those of us with mature collections can help them overcome this by giving them artwork. Iā€™ve given paintings (mine and othersā€™) to each of my four children. Two buy art themselves, one is saving to build a house, and one just isnā€™t interested. Thatā€™s not a bad result.

The Road to Seward, 6X8, oil on archival canvasboard, $348 includes shipping and handling in the continental US.

If youā€™ve never collected paintings, here are some tips to get you started.

  1. Define your interests: Visit galleries, museums, and art fairs to see what resonates with you. Donā€™t worry overmuch about matching your dĆ©cor; that will change over time. Instead, look at the work in its own right. Is it catching your eye because of composition, content, or color?
  2. A little knowledge is an excellent thing: I have written about the basic elements of design here. An art history or art appreciation course is a great way to start developing a critical eye.
  3. Set a budget: Determine how much youā€™re willing to spend on art. You might be shocked to realize that you can build a decent art collection for the same amount you currently spend on tchotchkes, shoes, or avocado toast.
  4. Beware cheap prints: These are not to be confused with fine art prints, which are made by artists in limited editions, and works of art in their own right. Prints are cheap in the short run, but they will never appreciate in value over time.
  5. Attend art events: Go to gallery openings, auctions, and art shows. This will teach you a lot about the art world, even if the wine and cheese are terrible.
  6. Buy from emerging artists: Collecting from up-and-coming artists can be a cost-effective way to start your collection while supporting new talent.
  7. Think about where youā€™ll hang the piece: While I donā€™t think you should buy art to match your couch, some idea of where it will end up is helpful. When I was younger, my furniture was terrible, and I moved it and art around constantly. Today my furniture is mostly still terrible, but I donā€™t bother rotating it; I do still move art around.
  8. Buy one good piece rather than a lot of subpar ones: Your mother told you the same thing about shoes, and itā€™s good advice. Just as thereā€™s fast fashion, thereā€™s fast art.
  9. Write it down somewhere: Document your purchases, even if that means sticking a note in the back of the frame. Someday, the provenance of that painting might be extremely important.
  10. Stay openminded: Just as my own painting has changed over time, so has my taste in art.
Toy Reindeer with double rainbow, oil on archival canvasboard, 6X8, $435 framed, includes shipping in continental US.

Happy collecting!

Just a quick reminder

Artworks for Humanity to benefit Waldo County Habitat for Humanity, is tomorrow.

Hiking, 6X8, oil on archival canvasboard, $435 includes shipping in continental US.

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

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Artworks for Humanity

Sunrise, City Park, by Carol L. Douglas, 18X24, oil on linen, available in Artworks for Humanity auction.

This summer I ambled up to Belfast with Ken DeWaard, Peter Yesis, and Stephen Florimbi to paint for the third annual Artworks for Humanity. As usual, we puttered around but nothing stuck. I did, however, learn what a captainā€™s gig is: a long narrow boat with both a slew of oars and a mast and sail. And I did several starts, which I may or may not finish.

From Harbor Park, Alison Hill

I can only wonder why Stephan Giannini loves to paint nocturnes, but heā€™s very good at it. I only like nocturnes if I can start them just before dawn, as Iā€™m very much a morning person. Luckily, my subject, City Park in Belfast, looks great at dawn. It faces east.

McLaughlin’s Lobster Shack, Lincolnville, Stephan Giannini

Iā€™ve given you just a sample of this yearā€™s paintings, but the full complement is viewable here. There are 25 lots in all; just click on the main image to start scrolling. (I’m lot 20.)

Goose River Morning, Peter Yesis

These paintings will be auctioned to support Habitat for Humanity of Waldo County. Sadly, Iā€™ll be out of town. If you too will be away from midcoast Maine I urge you to bid on your favorite painting by contacting Kim at Waterfall Arts. She will take your information in advance and Habitat will have stand-in bidding on your behalf, up to your maximum bid.

In recent years, affordable housing has become difficult to find in coastal Maine. Visitors are affected just as much as full-time residents, because this disproportionately impacts service-industry workers. Buying a painting in this auction does more than just give you a lifetime memento of the place you love.

Afternoon Light, Bjƶrn Runquist

The public is invited to view the work in the Bayview Room of the United Farmers Market of Maine between 2:30-3:30 on September 28th. A ticketed reception with the artists will run from 4:30-5:30. The auction, by Belfast Mayor Eric Sanders, will begin at 5:30.

Belfast Morning, Eric Jacobsen

Harbormaster, Dan Corey

Visit www.artworksforhumanity.org for more details. Tickets can be purchased online, in advance at the office of Mailloux & Marden, P.A. (151 High St., Belfast), or at the door. 

The Colonial, Colin Page

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

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Monday Morning Art School: How long does it take to get good at drawing?

Yesterday’s outdoor church service and picnic, drawing by Carol L. Douglas. I knew I didn’t have time to draw each figure, so I made them a single mass.

On Sundays, I have between 35 and 40 minutes to draw, because thatā€™s how long Quinton Self will preach. After decades of drawing in church, I can tell you exactly where the pastor is in his or her sermon; I almost always wind up at the same time.

Itā€™s helpful to know how long you have to draw, because you can choose your level of finish in advance. A 30-second gesture drawing and a three-hour portrait can both be stylish, finished drawings that tells the viewer something about the subject. But for either to work, they must be planned.

A preparatory drawing for a painting.

Whatā€™s the difference?

Gesture drawing captures the essence and movement of a subject quickly, focusing on flow and rhythm. A finished drawing involves refining details and form for a polished representation. The technique in gesture drawing is loose and spontaneous, whereas finished drawings require precision. Gesture drawings may take just a few seconds, while finished drawings can take hours or even days, depending on complexity and detail.

A quick sketch, not more than ten minutes.

Why draw in the first place?

I primarily draw as the first step in designing a painting. Itā€™s far faster than sketching out the idea in paint, only to realize that the composition I had in mind is weak. Iā€™ll draw when I donā€™t have time to paint or itā€™s not appropriate (as in church). But all that implies that drawing is somehow lesser than painting. Drawing is a powerful form of expression on its own.

Sometimes I’m the only one who’s amused. From a poem by John Betjeman.

How long does it take to get good at drawing?

Itā€™s a disservice to beginning painters to not insist that they first learn to draw. Itā€™s also a disservice to let them think that drawing is a magic trick or something weā€™re born knowing innately. Anyone of normal intelligence and vision can draw; they just need to learn how.

It doesnā€™t take long at all to learn. I taught my friend Amy Vail to draw in one short session; a week later, she was drawing like an old pro.

And sometimes I’ll work out something I don’t plan to paint.

From sketch to realized work

Sometimes you need to sketch before you can draw. Finished drawings require composition, proportion, lighting and perspective, just as finished paintings do. Andrew Wyeth created many drawings before he dragged out his paint kit, and many others just for the sheer joy of drawing.

Knowing how long you have to draw is your best tool to finish strong. Thatā€™s not always possible; for example, you will never know how long you have to wait at the doctorā€™s office. But when you do, you can direct your pencil to what matters in a sensible way.

I donā€™t have a drawing class scheduled, but if you want to take it next time itā€™s offered, email me here and Iā€™ll put you on a list.

An apology

Right before I left to teach aboard American Eagle last week, my laptop converted itself to a brick. (That happens to me frequently, and I canā€™t really explain why.) Fridayā€™s blog post was written on my phone, and it reads like it. Sorry about that.

When I got home, I told my daughter I needed to order a replacement. ā€œDonā€™t do that!ā€ she said. ā€œYour new one is already there!ā€ Iā€™m typing on it now, using remote desktop. Any bumps in the road going forward are just from reinstalling software and restoring my last backup. I hope this one lasts longer than 29 months I got out of the last one. Sigh.

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

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Two quick watercolors from offshore

I just finished teaching aboard the lovely and gracious American Eagle, now in her third year under Captain Tyler King. It was a week filled with painting discovery, adventure and great food (did I mention lobster?) and my students all progressed by leaps and bounds.

I had time to whip off these two fast watercolors on Yupo. No, they’re not for sale but I thought you’d enjoy seeing them.

These were painted with genuine Gulf of Maine seawater, which is my standard practice whenever possible. It creates granulation patterns and it’s often easier than lugging a jug of freshwater around. However, I don’t activate my paint with saltwater, because it seems to break down the binder. And it’s important to rinse my brushes with freshwater when I get home.

I haven’t been back to Castine since my friend Harry’s memorial service, and I was hesitant to go ashore. ā€œAll my friends are dead,ā€ I told Tyler in the most self-pitying voice I could muster.

I’m glad we went, because it was an opportunity for my students to practice perspective drawing. Every artist should understand two-point perspective, and then never use it again. Understanding it prevents many gaffes, not just in buildings, but in the sky as well. (Clouds follow the same perspective rules as everything else )

“I’m cured!” I announced when I climbed back aboard. I was being melodramatic, but it’s true that I was reminded of just how much I love Castine.

I have one more workshop this fall, an intensive that includes figure in the landscape and a trip to the Farnsworth. (While I normally include links in the text, I’m tapping this out on my phone.)

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

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Is the ocean a reflection of the sky?

Brigantine Swift in Camden Harbor, 24X30, oil on canvas, framed, $3478 includes shipping and handling in continental US.

If youā€™re looking for me this weekend, Iā€™ll be out on Penobsot Bay, teaching my Art and Adventure at Sea workshop aboard American Eagle. That means no connectivity and therefore no blog post on Wednesday. One of the most common questions Iā€™m asked is, how do you paint water. Water is so immense, slippery, and mercurial, that it is impossible to nail it down into a schtick. Instead, the painter must rely on observation.

Heavy Weather (Ketch Angelique), 24X36, oil on canvas, framed, $3985 includes shipping and handling in continental US.

Is the ocean a reflection of the sky?

Reflections are a distortion of the surrounding environment. Thatā€™s true whether youā€™re painting them on the ocean or in a glass of water. These reflections are never going to be consistent but they will follow the laws of physics.

Imagine an ocean that is perfectly flat, and that you can walk on water. Looking at your feet, you can see straight down into the water. Itā€™s not reflecting anything. Looking at a rubber ducky floating ten feet away, youā€™re looking at the surface at about a 26Ā° angle. Youā€™ll see a reflection of the ducky, the sky, and a glimpse of whatā€™s under the surface. As you look farther away, the angle gets smaller and smaller, and all you see is the reflected sky.

Reflection involves two rays ā€“ an incoming (incident) ray and an outgoing (reflected) ray. Physics tells us that the angles are identical but on opposite sides of a tangent. This is why the reflection of a boat needs to be directly below the real object in your painting. You can add other colors into that area, but the reflection canā€™t be wider than the object itā€™s reflecting.

Breaking Storm, oil on linen, 30X48, $5579 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

Water is transparent, but it has a shiny surface. Some rays of light make it through and bounce back at us from the sea floor. Reflections in glass work the same way. You can see through the glass in the surface thatā€™s facing you, but the curving sides reflect light from around the room. Because glass is imperfect, these reflections will be distorted.

The ocean complicates matters by being bouncy. Even on the calmest day, the surface of water is never perfectly flat; itā€™s wavy or worse, just like a fun-house mirror. Waves are a series of irregular curves. How they reflect light depends on what plane youā€™re seeing at that nano-second. It seems like the easiest thing to do is to capture it in a photo and paint from that, but what we see in photos is sometimes very different from what we perceive in life.

Instead, sit a moment with and watch how patterns seem to repeat. Theyā€™re never exactly the same, since waves are a stochastic process (think random but repeating). But theyā€™re close enough to discern general patterns.

Beautiful Dream, oil on archival canvasboard, $1449 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

Solid objects can also trip you up in their reflections. Consider the humble spoon. Itā€™s concave. That distorts its reflections. Thereā€™s no point in trying to predict what you might see; itā€™s best to just look. Likewise, a mirror only reflects straight back at you if youā€™re in front of it.

There are times when the ocean makes no reflection at all. Only smooth surfaces reflect light coherently enough to make reflections. Thatā€™s why burlap has no reflections. Sometimes, when water is being wind-whipped, it doesnā€™t have reflections either. To paint such a sea, keep the contrast low. A grey, windy day, or a turbulent sea will have a surface too broken up to reflect anything but the most general light.

Some people say that reflections should be lower in chroma than their objects, but I donā€™t think thatā€™s true. Often, the ocean seems to concentrate color. Sometimes, the water will be lightest at the horizon; other days there will be a deep band there. However, the farther away, the more its colors shift toward blue-violet.

Paintings by Ray Roberts, courtesy the Page Gallery.

If youā€™re in town this weekend

Colin Page tells me thereā€™s still room in Oil Painting On Location in Camden, Maine with well-known western artist Ray Roberts. Thatā€™s next Saturday and Sunday, September 21-22 from 9-4, and the fee is $300

This workshop will be in oils, but all media are welcome.

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

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Surf’s up!

High Surf, 12X16, oil on prepared birch painting surface, $1159 includes shipping and handling in continental US.

I always mean to go to Perkinā€™s Cove for its annual plein air event, for no other reason than to see my friends and paint along the Marginal Way. (I could do that any day of the week, but sometimes you need a spur.) This year, I finally fit it into my schedule. Of course, it wasnā€™t until I was a few minutes out of Ogunquit that I remembered to call one of those friends: my buddy Bruce McMillan. As we were talking, I passed him on the roadside, hauling his kit to the Marginal Way.

Surf’s Up is 12X16, on a prepared birch surface. $1159 includes shipping and handling in the Continental US.

Me, living in the past? No way!

Ogunquit is a place of fond memory for me. I used to take my kids there every other summer when they were small. Theyā€™d spend the day paddling in the surf, eat pink hot dogs at Barnacle Billyā€™s, and then weā€™d walk along the Marginal Way in the evening. Weā€™d stay with my friend Jan. These days, I drive past her lane and avert my eyes; where there were once small, rustic, seasonal cottages, there are now million-dollar vacation homes.

When my twins were about six, I took them out on boogie boards to a sandbar on the north end of Ogunquitā€™s ā€˜puddleā€™. We had fun playing in the surf, until it was time to go back. The tidal pool that had been ankle deep when we went out was now over my head, and the surf was rolling. Iā€™m a strong swimmer and both girls were good swimmers themselves, but it was all I could do to get them back to shore. I woke up in a cold sweat about it for months afterward. And Ogunquitā€™s beaches make rip currents and undertows when they feel like it.

Bruce took this delightful picture of me painting.

Look to the sea

I have been back to the Marginal Way to paint occasionally, and when I face toward the sea nothing has changed. Nor will it, if Nature has its way.

Bruce painted spray in watercolor and I painted it in oils. Every few minutes we would stop and stare openmouthed at the towering surf. It cut down on our productivity, but it was a transcendent experience.

Come see me tomorrow at 394 Commercial Street, Rockport, ME, from 5-7 PM. I promise I’m not cooking.

Come see me this evening

Iā€™m not cooking, for which you can all be grateful, but my husband has offered to make his signature bean dip.

Grand opening
Carol L. Douglas Gallery at Richards Hill
Friday, September 13, 5-7 PM
394 Commercial Street, Rockport, ME 04856

For more details, see here.

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

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What makes a painting valuable?

The Late Bus, oil on archival canvasboard, 6X8, $435.00 framed, includes shipping and handling in continental US.

ā€œIn the Rock-Paper-Scissors scheme of things, does acrylic ever top oil in terms of being taken seriously by collectors and curators?ā€ Cheryl Shanahan asked me. Itā€™s a great question. Although acrylics have been around since the middle of the last century (like me), they are not as commonly used as oils by the top tier of painters.

There are, of course, some acrylic painters whoā€™ve been taken very seriously indeed: David Hockney, Robert Motherwell, Mark Rothko, Helen Frankenthaler, and Roy Lichtenstein, to name just a few. Acrylics lend themselves more to color field painting than they do to fine modeling. And until the advent of retarders, acrylics were difficult to use en plein air. Standard heavy-body acrylics are a constant struggle against premature drying when used outdoors.

Early Morning at Moon Lake, 6X8, oil on archival canvasboard, $348 includes shipping and handling in continental US.

What makes a painting valuable?

The value of any work of art rests mostly in the name of its creator, a fact which has infuriated artists since the advent of art. Of course, if he or she is dead, the supply of new work has dried up, which drives prices up. Thatā€™s why Iā€™m so tempted to fake my own death.

In 2019, an exhaustive study of the works of Joan MirĆ³ noted, ā€œMirĆ³ā€™s works command higher prices, ceteris paribus *, when they were painted on canvas, were sold at Sothebyā€™s and in New York City or London, were traded during the evening session and depending on the period in which they had been painted, the size of their surface area, the number of words used to describe the respective lot and whether they had appeared in an art book. The prices of MirĆ³ā€™s paintings increased substantially between 2003 and 2008 and then declined, coinciding with the global financial crisis of 2009.ā€ You can’t discount market manipulation when considering what makes a painting valuable.

Last light at Cobequid Bay, 6X8, oil on archival canvasboard, $348 includes shipping and handling in continental US.

There are oil painters who will tell you thereā€™s a hierarchy of mediums. ā€œI had a watercolor friend who attended a plein air convention and she felt as if the oil painters were dismissive,ā€ Cheryl said. ā€œI listened to another oil painter friend on a podcast, and she was poo-pooing acrylics a bit. Her take was that galleries she was interested in were showing only oils.ā€

In my experience, many gallerists are already saddled with too many artists and will tell importuning artists the first thing that comes to mind to get rid of them. No gallery would reject a tempera painting by Andrew Wyeth, a watercolor by John Singer Sargent, or a house-paint drip painting by Jackson Pollock.

Having said that, there is some justification for the price differential between media. Some mediums are more time-consuming and the materials cost can be higher.

No Northern Lights Tonight, 6X8, oil on archival canvasboard, $348 includes shipping and handling in continental US.

Having taught many students in oils, acrylics, watercolor, and pastel, I have never been able to figure out what makes a person gravitate to a specific medium. Theyā€™re each capable of being either painterly or linear. But although Iā€™m reasonably facile in them all, I gravitate to oils, followed by watercolors. Itā€™s not that I think theyā€™re better; in fact, if I were twenty again, Iā€™d probably be using spray paint. Itā€™s simply that itā€™s easiest to pick up the same kit day after day. If I flitted between them, Iā€™d spend all my time setting up and none of it painting.

*Thatā€™s just a fancy way of saying, ā€˜everything else being equal.ā€™

Mark next Friday on your calendar

Grand opening
Carol L. Douglas Gallery at Richards Hill
Friday, September 13, 5-7 PM
394 Commercial Street, Rockport, ME 04856

For more details, see here.

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

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Monday Morning Art School: do you see what I see?

Marshes along the Ottawa River, Plaisance, 8X10, oil on archival canvasboard, $522 includes shipping and handling in continental US.

There is a young maple tree that I watch from my living room. This morning, itā€™s green overlaid with bronze. The maple behind it has a golden hue where itā€™s hit by the sun, but the part in shadow is a very dull blue. Closer to my house, the neighborā€™s tree is developing dull violet overtones.

We old-timers say that maple trees start turning color before the kids go back to school. Thatā€™s not strictly true, because maple trees change their color throughout the season, starting with the brilliant red buds that we recognize as one of the first signs of springs. New leaves are chartreuse and mature into the full-throated, deep, dull ā€œwall of greenā€ thatā€™s the undoing of many painters. There summer sits for a few hot weeks before it begins to slide inexorably into the cooler air and warmer tones of fall. By autumnā€™s end, all the deciduous leaves will be gone except those of the young beeches and oaks, which will dry yellow and bronze on their stems and create a quiet susurration in the winter woods.

The Pine Tree State, 6X8, oil on archival canvasboard, $435.

But ask us what color a treeā€™s leaves are, and weā€™ll invariably say, ā€œgreen.ā€ We wonā€™t specify the glossy dark green of summer oak leaves, or the delicate light green of the katsura tree. (I have one in my back yard, and as the leaves dry and fall, they smell like apple pie.)

The green that many painters use for foliage bears about the same relationship to the natural worldā€™s green as Gatorade does to juice.

The Vineyard, oil on linen, 30X40, $5072 framed, includes shipping and handling in continental US.

Do you see what I see?

Sometimes I paint with sunglasses on, because I like painting contre jour and the light hurts my eyes. As much as people tell you not to do that, I never notice much problem matching values; my glasses are limiting the light reflecting from my paint and canvas as much as they are the light bouncing off the ocean. (Where they make a difference is in specular highlights, but forewarned is forearmed.)

Visual perception varies from person to person, but within our own brain, we make consistent adjustments. If you always see things as pinker than I do, youā€™ll see your paints that way, too, and unconsciously make the correction. Not that we really know what anyone else sees; how could we measure that?

Are you looking or thinking?

We humans are too smart for painting. We paint with our reason rather than our eyes. For example, we ā€˜knowā€™ that the irises of the eye are round. We paint that without noticing that for most of us, our top lids cut off a wedge of this pie shape. We know that barns are red, so we donā€™t notice that the bright red barn on a far hill is in fact objectively brown; our minds interpolate the color for us.

“Eastern Manitoba Forest,” Sandilands National Forest, Manitoba

What do you really look like to others?

ā€œWho is this old woman looking at me in the mirror?ā€ my mother once asked me. Most of us carry around a mental snapshot of ourselves thatā€™s a combination of all our prior selves, real or imagined. That can make a candid photo or unexpected compliment tough to take.

Thatā€™s, I think, the same phenomenon as described above. Our inner selves know us rather than see us objectively.

Whatā€™s the solution?

Time and practice are the great healers for this problem. Meanwhile:

ā€¢ Consciously look at things as if you were seeing them for the first time.Ā 
ā€¢ Take the time to measure; that forces you to be objective.
ā€¢ Draw or paint the same subject from different angles.
ā€¢ Look for subtle color shifts and patterns.
ā€¢ Observe light and shadow without thinking about what object youā€™re drawing.

Mark next Friday on your calendar

Grand opening
Carol L. Douglas Gallery at Richards Hill
Friday, September 13, 5-7 PM
394 Commercial Street, Rockport, ME 04856

For more details, see here.

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

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Weeds, pests and other good design

First intimations of fall, 8X10, oil on prepared birch surface.

Weā€™re in a long run of beautiful weather here in Maine. Ken DeWaard, Eric Jacobsen, Bjƶrn Runquist and I have been out plein air painting as much as possible. I really need to do some paperwork, but thereā€™s no rain on the forecast. How do people in southern California get anything done?

Here in New England, we know that any long stretch of warm, sunny, rain-free weather is the exception. Like squirrels storing up nuts for winter, weā€™re storing up visual memories of these warm days.

Overgrown, 8X10, oil on archival canvasboard.

I havenā€™t concerned myself with results. Iā€™ve just painted fast and immersed myself in the process. Are any of these finished? Absolutely not. But theyā€™re better than what was on those boards before.

For some reason, itā€™s been all about the weeds for me this week. Iā€™m a big fan of God-as-gardener; I donā€™t think artificial gardens can touch wild meadows for beauty.

Natureā€™s palette shifts as the season progresses. Spring starts with delicate pastel blossoms blooming alongside the lilacs and dog roses. By midsummer, the blossoms grow more colorful, with crown vetch, clover and fireweed (and the brief, glorious burst of red wood lilies). Now that weā€™re approaching our first frost, we see radiant spirals of white and purple asters among the goldenrod. All are punctuated with the dried husks of milkweed and other earlier-blooming plants.

An unmowed field, 9X12, oil on archival canvasboard.

Purple loosestrife is, of course, an invasive pest and noxious weed; the experts all tell us that. They suggest pulling the plants before they can set seeds or, if itā€™s not in a wetland, spraying with an herbicide. (However, it likes its feet damp, so it avoids wholesale chemical slaughter, for the most part.)

Itā€™s been around longer than I have, but its press is so bad that Iā€™ve avoided painting it. However, the color is like nothing else in nature, and it complements goldenrod wonderfully.

The heck with it, I decided. If Eric doesnā€™t mind that itā€™s growing in his back field, neither do I. ā€œThe bees love it,ā€ Eric told me. And anyways, Iā€™m kind of an invasive species here, myself.

Sunbathers at Beauchamp Point, 9X12, oil on archival canvasboard.

Iā€™ve painted boats at Beauchamp Point many times, since Rockport is a haven for wooden-boat enthusiasts. This week, I was distracted by a group of sunbathers, laughing and talking in the sweet evening air. Thereā€™s no sand on this ā€˜beachā€™, just rocks and bigger rocks, but thereā€™s something satisfying about stretching out on a sun-kissed boulder. Pro tip: if you want people to leave, just start painting them.

Yesterday afternoon, Bjƶrn and I were finishing up, the others having moved along. An onshore breeze picked up. The temperature dropped, the leaves showed their undersides; a large flock of gulls pirouetted over our heads. ā€œWhere Iā€™m from,ā€ I told Bjƶrn, ā€œthe leaves turning over means a weather change.ā€ Heā€™d heard that too, but no such weather change is on the forecast.

After a lifetime in western New York, I could predict the weather from the sky, the wind, and even the smell of the air. Even after a decade, I have no such ability in Maine. I once asked Captain John Foss, what signs he looked for to predict a weather change. ā€œI listen to the weather forecast,ā€ he told me.

Mark next Friday on your calendar

Grand opening
Carol L. Douglas Gallery at Richards Hill
Friday, September 13, 5-7 PM
394 Commercial Street, Rockport, ME 04856

For more details, see here.

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025: