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Category: workshop

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Reconnoitering Belfast, day two

Super-fast wee little sketch of tugboats in Belfast harbor. It came to an abrupt end (see below).
One of the tasks I love best is driving around scoping out painting sites for my students.
After stopping at the Fireside Inn to make sure everyone’s arrangements are in order for August, I started ferreting around Belfast proper.
Classic Maine promontory, outside Belfast.
If you’re looking for an archetypal mid-coast Maine community, you’ll look in vain. Every town and city has its own character; this is far more true than, say, the little villages strung like pearls along the Erie Canal. Rockland has an old brick Main Street that marches along its waterfront. Rockport curves around its harbor and ancient, defunct lime kiln. Camden is crammed full of luxury yachts, wooden boats, gracious inns (and cars). Lincolnville is a beach town. Northport looks like nothing from Route 1, but veer off on a side road and you might stumble across Bayside, with its lovely Victorian cottages marching down to the sea.
Quiet Maine moment, outside Belfast.
The Belfast area has been settled since around the time of the Revolutionary War, with the usual burnings and occupations of contested properties during our two wars with the British. In the 19th century, it developed into a shipbuilding center, a legacy still visible in the boatyards on the waterfront.
The risk you always take painting on a waterfront is that someone will park their boat right in front of you before you finish. Oh, well.
As wooden ship building faded at the turn of the century, the local economy shifted to seafood and poultry. Unlike many Maine cities, it wasn’t completely dependent on water transport; a spur from the Maine Central railroad was built in 1871. The poultry business is now gone, but the busy little city is now home to galleries and artists.

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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Reconnoitering, day one

Pendleton Point Beach, 8X6, oil on canvas, sold.
I have allotted two days to reconnoiter painting sites for my Belfast workshop. Yes, I am familiar with the Belfast area, but finding spots for a group of painters is different from finding spaces for solo painting.
Pup waiting for the Islesboro ferry. So good.
The first step was to take the ferry to Islesboro. I took my student Loren with me—since he lives in Maine anyway—and we drove the length of the island before settling on a public beach. It’s a different feeling from Monhegan: more sheltered because it’s within Penobscot bay, and a gentler landscape. It’s also more accessible, which is what’s important in this workshop, since in part I designed it around the needs of a mobility-impaired student. Monhegan is beautiful, but it’s simply impossible to navigate the ferry and the steep slopes if you’re not fit.
Loren Brown’s oil sketch of Pendleton Point beach.
Islesboro, on the other hand, is a Maine community, rather than a tourist attraction. We ran across a “save our post office” rally; had we had more time, I would have joined in.
Loren and I both painted small sketches to make sure our designated painting site worked. Mine sold from my easel. That doesn’t happen often, but when it does, it makes me very happy.
Lighthouse at Islesboro ferry landing.
When I got back to the mainland, I stopped at the Fireside Inn to check on our arrangements. It not only has a salt-water pool, but said pool has a lift for mobility-impaired swimmers to get in and out. As my friend Pamela says, this workshop has “flow.”
I ran across my dream home along the way.
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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Gone to a private collection!

The Halve Maen Passing Hudson Highlands, by little old me.
If you want to see The Halve Maen Passing Hudson Highlands, above, you’ll need to get out to RIT-Dyer this month, because the painting is sold and will be shipped after Intersections of Form, Color, Time and Space closes.
I painted this for the 400th anniversary of Hudson’s voyage of exploration. From the native perspective, the boat is a black spot of melanoma, or the first eruption of the plague—something seemingly insignificant that will forever change the world. The brilliant colors are those of a dying day, a flaming sunset, the end of a season.
I love history but generally shy away from historical paintings. They have great potential to be pedantic. You must study the dress, weaponry, housing, jewelry, and landscape of the period, and then you must edit the regalia down to the point where it no longer drives the painting. The Lenape people, fortunately, are well-documented anthropologically and artistically, including in N.C. Wyeth’s The Hunter (1906).
Stu Chait and me at the opening of Intersections of Form, Color, Time and Space. 

My Dying Boudicca is on the left; his Atemito is on the right.
I have another historical painting in this show, Dying Boudicca (on the left, above). Boudicca was queen of the Icenis, and led the most successful uprising ever against the Roman Empire. She was married to a client king of the Romans. He was deeply in debt to Roman lenders at the time of his death. He left his kingdom jointly to his daughters and the Emperor, but on his death his kingdom was annexed as if conquered.
The Hunter, by N.C. Wyeth, accurately depicts pre-contact Lenape work togs. Wyeth trod the narrow line between historical accuracy and gripping painting with unerring taste.
Boudicca was beaten, her daughters were raped, and Roman financiers collected the swag. Boudicca rallied her people and the neighboring Trinovantes. They destroyed Colchester, London and St. Albans. Casualties among the Romans were estimated to be between 70,000 and 80,000 people. Of course the Britons were destined to eventually fail against such superior numbers. Rather than submit to capture and humiliation, Boudicca poisoned herself.

In my painting, Boudicca’s pomp and circumstance, represented by her purple robe, is discarded. At the moment of her death, she is a woman alone.

I’m leaving for Maine next week. Come join me! I’m down to one opening in my 2014 workshop in Belfast, ME. Information is available here.
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The sunscreen dilemma

Excessive sun and skin exposure isn’t something we worry about in the northeast. This is Sue Leo painting in Rockport, ME, with me last summer. Cool and damp, which is why we all have such lovely skin.
When I was identified as having a gene for Lynch Syndrome, I resolved to be better about applying sunscreen when outside painting or teaching. After all, if you learned you had a mutation that made you vulnerable to lung cancer, you’d hardly keep on smoking, would you?
The problem is that I just can’t seem to break the sun habit. I live in the far north, where we have two months in which we can shed our layers. And I’m chronically Vitamin D-deficient (which is endemic here in the Great Lakes region). Higher levels of vitamin D are associated with better outcomes for colorectal cancer, which I’ve had once and am at a high risk of having again.
When it’s sunny, we’re often bundled up and exposing very little skin. Here we are painting at Owl’s Head, Maine, last October.
A new study seems to indicate that even high-SPF sunscreen provides insufficient protection against melanomas (the skin cancer that kills) although they provide adequate protection against the less-aggressive squamous-cell carcinomas.
 “UV light targets the very genes protecting us from its own damaging effects, showing how dangerous this cancer-causing agent is,” said lead investigator Professor Richard Marais of the University of Manchester’s Cancer Research UK Institute.
His research found that SPF 50 sunscreen did not protect against the development of melanoma with UV sunlight exposure. Although sunscreen protects us against sunburn, it might not protect against skin cancer.  
When it all comes together—sun, warmth and subject—it’s hard to remember to stop and put on sunscreen.
Does this mean I can stop worrying about sunscreen when I’m outside painting? Sadly, no. “This work highlights the importance of combining sunscreen with other strategies to protect our skin, including wearing hats and loose fitting clothing, and seeking shade when the sun is at its strongest,” said Professor Marais.
Well, I do wear a hat, and capris instead of shorts. I could add ¾ length sleeves. But no socks. Socks with sandals are ridiculous.

Buy some sunscreen and come to Maine and learn to paint. I have two openings left for my 2014 workshop in Belfast, ME. Information is available here.
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I may make rotten frames, but I have a perfect nose

My perfect nose. Eat your heart out, Georgia O’Keeffe.
So, it was another bad day, which I won’t go into, because I’m sick of cataloging failure. But when I finished twelve hours on my feet, I consoled myself with reading the Daily Mail, which has to be both the most ridiculous and most entertaining ‘news’ website out there. And the Daily Mail tells me that the perfect, sexiest nose is tilted at 106°.
So I take a selfie and, lo and behold, my nose is perfect. Never mind the wrinkles, the grey hair, the aching feet and legs… according to the Daily Mail, I am hot.
That certainly makes up for a bad day at work, doesn’t it? 
A few other dames with perfect noses.
I have two openings left for my 2014 workshop in Belfast, ME. Information is available here.
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How I’m spending my summer vacation

My show, God+Man, is at Bethel’s AVIV Gallery, 321 East Avenue, Rochester, until the end of June. This is a reprise of a show created for the Davison Gallery at Roberts Wesleyan, and it’s easy to visit: just enter through the rear Anson Place doors across from the Body Shop.

Our student show runs to the end of the month at the VB Brewery, 6606 Route 96 in Victor. (It’s still possible to bid on one of the abstractions there to benefit the Open Door Mission. The brewery is open Wednesday-Sunday.

On July 11, Stu Chait and I open “Intersections: Form, Space, Time & Color” at Dyer Arts Center at Rochester Institute of Technology’s National Technical Institute for the Deaf. The show runs July 7–30. This includes more than sixty paintings. From me, that’s both my studio nudes and plein air paintings; from Stu, that’s mostly abstraction, although he does include a few plein air pieces from back when we first met.
From there I go to Maine, where I’m participating in Castine Plein Air from July 24-26. This event draws 40 juried artists from around the northeast to the historic city of Castine, home of the Maine Maritime Academy.

Next on the docket is Camden Plein Air, hosted by the Camden Falls Gallery. The painting dates are July 31-August 8, and the work will be hung in the gallery during the month of August.
Then my workshopruns from August 10 to 15 in Belfast, ME. There’s still room, but not very much, since I’m only teaching one of them this summer.

Then—after catching my breath for a day or two—I drive to Saranac Lake, New York, to participate in the Adirondack Plein Air Festivalfrom August 21-24. My friend and student Carol Thiel has been telling me about this for a while now, but what really clinched the deal was realizing that many of my Lower Hudson Valley PAP pals would be there.

I’ll be home for Labor Day!

I have three openings left for my 2014 workshop in Belfast, ME. Information is available here.

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More on our student show

Carol L. Douglas Studio Annual Student Show

The VB Brewery, 6606 New York 96, Victor, NY 14564

Opening reception, Sunday June 8, from 1-4 PM

Kitty’s Dog, Moke, by Christine Long
I have an elderly Jack Russell terrier with whom I have a love-hate relationship. Yes, he is pea-brained, attacks small animals, and tries to bite the mail carrier, but he’s also affectionate and loyal.
Yesterday, one of my students, Christine Long, dropped off this painting for our student show. It could be my Max, with the breed’s characteristic pose and slightly worried expression. It will be in our student show in June at the VB Brewery in Victor.

Three abstractions, by Cath Bullinger, Brad VanAuken, and Carol L. Douglas. We’re auctioning these to raise money for the Open Door Mission.
In April of last year, Cath Bullinger, Brad VanAuken and I collaboratedon three abstractions. With the passage of time—and the addition of frames—I think they were quite wonderful.
Of course, they were an experiment, so when I was asked whether one of them was for sale, I was nonplussed and dropped the ball. They’ve been hanging around my studio since.
The three of us have decided to auction off the three paintings to benefit the Open Door Mission here in Rochester. They’ll be hanging in our student show. Just stop by in the month of June and pencil your name and bid in on the silent auction form. At the end of the month, the highest bid wins. And with an opening bid of $50, you have a decent shot of getting a nice painting for a great price, and the satisfaction of knowing you’re helping a great organization.
Camden Harbor Reflections, by Pamela Casper.
Two of my 2013 workshop students have graciously volunteered to send work for the student show. Both are working artists. Pamela Casper lives in NYC and has shown extensively in the United States and Europe. Nancy Woogen paints, teaches and exhibits in the Hudson Valley.

There are still a few openings in my 2014 workshop in Belfast, ME. Information is available here.
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Oh, buoy!

Day #2. Will finish today. I love this fundraiser for Penobscot Bay Resource Center almost more than anything else I do!
If I were gonna make a habit of painting on buoys, I’d find some way to hold them steady. I painted on this one for five and a half hours yesterday, and it wasn’t my painting hand that was tired, it was the hand clutching the buoy.
I haven’t got a table per se in my studio, so I sat in the dinette in my kitchen to work on this. That had the advantage of being more comfortable, but it had the disadvantage of exposing me to my peanut gallery.
How can you tell the lobster is attacking New York? Because that’s the Brooklyn Bridge!
“Do you really think a lobster could stand on his tail like that to attack the city of New York?” asked my son.
“A lobster could theoretically grow that big,” noted my daughter, who is a biomedical engineering major and presumably au courant on matters of biology. “Unlike humans, who have a finite number of cell replications, they can keep growing forever.”
Even my engineer husband and daughters haven’t found a way to make working on this buoy comfortable. Any suggestions?
“However,” she added, “I think the lobster should be lighted from the bottom. He is, after all, in the City.”
I hate when my kids are right. But I also plan to finish this painting today, so they can have it in Stonington, ME, by May 15.


Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Maine in 2014 or Rochester at any time. My Belfast, ME, workshop is almost sold out. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!
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Barrier-free plein air painting

Schoen Place, even though it’s a reworked old industrial space, is very accessible to the less-mobile painter.
As much as I loved teaching at the Irondequoit Inn and Lakewatch Manor, neither of them were barrier-free. I have a student here in Rochester who wanted dearly to come to Maine with me, but the staircases kept her away.  So when we booked into Belfast’s Fireside Inn, which has a lift, she signed up right away.
Ironically, my home studio in Rochester isn’t barrier-free, so V. only studies with me in the summer. When we first met I thought plein-air handicapped-access was probably not a workable concept. But in fact here in Rochester it works very well. We find a location, V. spins her walker around and uses it as a seat, and we’re good to go. We’ve painted at Lake Ontario, along the Erie Canal, at High Falls and at many other places.
Durand-Eastman is another place that’s more accessible than it seems at first glance. It has a paved path along the waterfront.
It’s just a matter of avoiding places with really soft gravel, or places that require too much walking. Realistically, if it’s not safe and pleasant for V, it’s not going to be pleasant for someone schlepping 15 pounds of painting supplies on his or her back.
It’s not something I ever thought of before I met V, I’m ashamed to admit. But since I’ve been paying attention, I’ve realized that barrier-free is something smaller cities like Rochester have done better than other, trendier places in my orbit. We have the space to reinvent ourselves.
Highland Park is another place with excellent, paved paths, and it’s possible to circumnavigate the space without using stairs.
I think it’s going to work just fine in Maine, too. (I am almost sold out for this workshop, so if you’re on the fence about coming, you really should do something sooner or later.)


Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Belfast, Maine in August, 2014 or in Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!
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Anders Zorn, redux

Yesterday I went with my pal Brad Marshall to see Anders Zorn: Sweden’s Master Painter at the National Academy. Yes, I loved it. Here are a few paintings that really impressed me.
Herdsmaid (Walk), 1908. The softness of the firs is quite incredible. It appears to be wet-on-dry but I wouldn’t stake my life on that. He feels no need to be didactic about his narrative; instead, the figure of the girl and the cows disappear into the background. There is no brown in the dirtscape; it’s all shades of mauve.
Summer Vacation, 1886, watercolor. Emma Zorn posed as a tourist in this painting along the Baltic Sea. I’m blown away by the perspective in the waves; it’s perfect. So too is the soft wet (light) modeling and the dry (dark) modeling of the waves. It could be the Maine landscape with that outcrop in the background.
Lapping Waves, 1887, watercolor. Again the reflections in the water are stunningly realized, both in terms of shape and color. The houses rising on the far hillside are in perfect counterpoint.
Reflections, 1889. The foreground reed or branch screen is a problem in the intimate landscape. Painting them in can be fey; leaving them out ruins the sense of closeness. Zorn deals with this by bringing the contrast between the reeds and the background way down. The colors in the water are magical, and the light and chroma are all in the far bank, not in the figure.
Man and Boy in Algiers, 1887. Joaquín Sorolla and John Singer Sargent were renowned for their handling of white-on-white; here Zorn proves he’s just as competent at it. More than that, I feel like I know this guy; he may have been part of the late 19th century mania for Orientalism, but he’s a fully realized person.
Anders Zorn: Sweden’s Master Painter runs until May 18, 2014 at the National Academy of Art, XX Park Avenue, New York, NY.


Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Belfast, Maine in August, 2014 or in Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!