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Category: wooden boats

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It’s complicated

Camden schooner fleet, 20X16, oil on canvasboard, $1085, contact Camden Falls Gallery.

Perhaps it’s my advanced age, but I think I’m channeling Grandma Moses this summer. (She was from Greenwich, New York, which is a tiny town near Glens Falls, so we have that Upstate thing in common.) I’m finding myself less interested in modeling with value and brushwork and more and more interested in creating complex patterns of flat color.

Luckily, I got it mostly painted before the boats started to leave on me.
Yesterday I was up at the crack of dawn so I could paint the schooner fleet at Camden. Even by my standards, this painting got awfully complicated, particularly when the fleet started to go out, one by one.
The kayak students went by so many times the instructor asked me if I’d included them in my painting.
But it all worked out just fine—I’d drafted the hulls first, so it was just a question of filling in the rigging. Today, I’m in search of the Lazy Jack II, and since I know it goes out at 9:45 AM, I’m going to try to get to Camden by 5:30. Which is why I’m keeping this brief.
Sorry, folks. My workshop in Belfast, ME is sold out. Message me if you want a spot on my waitlist, or information about next year’s programs. Information is available here.
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Love stories

Waiting out the Fog, oil on canvasboard, 12X9, sold

A few days ago, I sold a painting to a couple about to be married. They were enjoying a quiet day at Pendleton Point in Islesboro, and the bride wanted the painting to as a remembrance of the day.

Some incredible boats assembling in Camden for the Camden feeder of the Eggemoggin Reach Regatta.
Yesterday I painted in Camden, which is home to the Northeast’s largest windjammer fleet. There are even more gorgeous wooden boats than usual right now, because they are gathering from all over for the first turn of the Eggemoggin Reach Regatta. I had to remind myself that I was there to paint, not drool over their brightwork.
The public restrooms in Camden always have the most entertaining graffiti..
When having trouble choosing, ask an expert: harbormaster Steve Pixley duly recommended a ketch (which may or may not have been named Saphaedra). Several hours into my painting (top), a man stopped to chat with me and then moved on. A little while later, he came back and asked me if I would paint a similar painting of the Lazy Jack II, on which his cousin will be married in mid-August. I’ve painted the Lazy Jack II before, and I am thrilled to be asked to do it again.
Deflated, oil on canvasboard, 8X6, $150. Available. Contact Camden Falls Gallery if you’re interested.
How awesome is it to be part of two different love stories in the same week?
A note for my workshop students: bring bungee cords if you plan to paint on floating docks. It’s a real pain to fish an easel out of the ocean.
People come to places like Camden for the experience, and they often want to take a tiny bit of that home with them. Yes, they can buy lovely things in the shops in Camden, but a painting will remind them of a moment in Maine every time they look at it. Long after we have all passed on, that painting will still say something about a beautiful day, a time and a place.

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