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Tag: Angelique

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Painting sails

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

That red buoy on the left is a nun. Red marks the edge of the channel on the starboard side when a boat is heading in from the open sea. That tells us the ketch Angelique is heading into port, running through a very changeable sea.

Last winter I was asked to do an online demo of a marine painting by the North Weald Art Group in Surrey, England. They didn’t care whether I painted boats or the sea, so I gave them both. As you know, I’ll take any opportunity to paint a boat, paint on a boat, or look at paintings of a boat. But I also wanted to demonstrate painting waves, because they have the potential for great power in their design.

The problem with a split subject is in giving equal weight to each part. That’s good for demonstrating two separate subjects, but not so great in composition. By adding the nun (the red buoy), I was able to tie together and energize the composition, echoing the red of the nun in Angelique’s tanbark sails. If you’re interested in painting sails, Angelique’s are fun because they create a bold dark shape against the sky.

My sketch for Heavy Weather. 5X8, graphite on Bristol-finish paper.

I could have painted a small oil painting in the allotted two hours, but that would have been difficult for the North Weald people to see on their small monitors. Working large meant I had no chance of finishing; I had to preload some of my demo.

I started with an idea board. Except for the nun, none of these photos were to be quoted verbatim (meaning there aren’t any copyright issues). I drew my composition and transferred it to the canvas. Then I made an educated guess about my palette and premixed my colors. All of that took just moments to describe, and that allowed me to get right to the heart of the painting.

My grisaille for Heavy Weather.

Up to that point, my interest was purely pedantic; I just wanted to demonstrate painting sails and painting waves. But once I had my brushes in my fat little hand, the painting grabbed me by the scruff of the neck. My time flew by. “Are you sure you must go?” I asked them. “I’m good for another few hours.”

My problem in painting waves is that I enjoy it so much I can just keep painting the same ones over and over, in a sort of meditative state. Finally, it was time to say “enough is enough” and declare them finished.

This painting is now hanging at Lone Pine Real Estate’s new office at 17 Elm Street, Camden, ME. Broker Rachael Umstead invited me to hang paintings in their newly-decorated space so I brought her an assortment of 16 of my favorites. I shot some video hoping to put together a reel, but I was just too tired, and it flopped. No problem; Rachael shot a super-cute reel, which you can see here.

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My love affair with schooner American Eagle

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

“You have a crush on every boat,” my husband once said. Of all the boats I’ve ever loved, schooner American Eagle is at the top of the list. She’s not the only windjammer I admire, or even the only windjammer I’ve painted. But I get to teach on her every year, she’s always in perfect nick and I never have to do any of the maintenance. That’s down to Captain John Foss, who restored her impeccably, and Captain Tyler King, who’s keeping up the good work.

A quick glimpse will tell you why we had no onboard electronics on this lovely old girl. I wish I still had her but, as they say, it’s complicated.

I grew up in western New York, where my family kept a 30′ wooden sloop, first at Buffalo on Lake Erie and then at Wilson on Lake Ontario. As a kid, I figured that since the Great Lakes are smaller than the ocean, they must be safer. It’s only been since I’ve moved to the Maine coast that I’ve realized how extreme the weather in my hometown of Buffalo is. The Great Lakes are prone to unpredictable squall lines, seiches, and storm surges. Electrical storms are very common, even in winter, when they create the phenomenon known as thundersnow. Periodically, the water in Lake Ontario turns over, making a noticeable, sudden change in the temperature that results in fog. The Great Lakes have heavy freighter traffic and fog can drop in an instant. It’s less nerve-wracking now, but in my youth “onboard electronics” were limited to running lights.

American Eagle in Drydock, 12X16, $1159 unframed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

On the other hand, the Great Lakes are consistently deep. If you can get out of the harbor channel without grounding yourself on last winter’s silt, you’re unlikely to hit anything submerged. That’s different from the Maine coast, where rocks stick inconveniently out of the water, or worse, not quite out of the water. When I first sailed on schooner American Eagle, I told Captain John that the thing that gave me pause about potting around in the ocean by myself is not knowing what was on the bottom. “Lobster traps, pretty much,” he laughed. And sailors today all use depth finders, which take the sport out of holing one’s hull.

However, the weather on the Maine Coast is simply not as foul as it is on Lake Ontario. (A friend who lives in Scotland tells me that Rochester is more dreich in late fall and winter than is Edinburgh.) It rains less here, and there are fewer storms.

I see boats as powerful symbols of the human condition. We’re always either sailing into trouble or getting ourselves out of it. Breaking Storm, above, is about the latter, and I’ve got a painting of the windjammer Angelique on my easel that’s about the former. (Sorry about that, Captains Dennis and Candace!)

American Eagle rounding Owls Head, 6×8, oil on archival canvasboard, $348 unframed includes shipping and handling in the continental US.

Breaking Storm is my favorite of all my schooner American Eagle paintings, but I realize it may be too large and expensive for some people. That’s why I painted American Eagle rounding Owls Head, just 6X8. It’s softer and more suggestive than the larger painting, and there’s no sense that the storm has abated.

Of course, if you sail with us in September, you can paint your own version of sailing on the Maine coast. But if you can’t go adventuring with us, a painting is every bit as wonderful.

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

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Sunset sail

Sunset sail, 14X18, oil on linen, $1594 framed includes shipping and handling in the continental US.

My husband is under the sweet illusion that I can identify any boat in the Maine windjammer fleet from the top of Beech Hill. From that distance, lobster boats are specks on the water, sloops are brilliant white triangles, and schooners are a blurred sawtooth pattern.

Closer, I find it hard to identify them by their sail plans alone. Some have topsails and some don’t, and the mast heights and rakes are different. The trouble is, I can never remember which are which. I’m much better on hull color and shape, but they are often not visible when a boat is far away.

When painting a boat, the details of rigging matter. Before I moved to Maine, I had a commission to paint one of the schooners in Camden Harbor. I wrestled with it for two days and was happy with the results. Two wharf rats stopped to look at it as I packed up.

“Should we tell her?” said one.

“Nah,” said the other.

I couldn’t figure it out then, and to this day I still don’t know what I’d done wrong. But I console myself with the knowledge that the buyers probably knew even less than I did.

A completely different evening on the water, from this fall’s watercolor workshop.

Sunset Sail is not intended to be any specific boat. She’s meant to be sort of an Everyman of schooners.

You can watch a thousand sunsets across the ocean and none of them will be the same. That’s also true of schooners-by the time they’ve bobbed along the coast for a century or more, they’ve developed their own character. Of course I have my favorites-American Eagle, obviously, because she’s the most beautiful of boats and I get to sail on her every year. Then there’s the ketch Angelique with her sweet red sails and plumb bow, Heritage for its beautiful hull colors… oh, who am I kidding? I love them all.

I have the great fortune to be able to watch the sun rise or set on the ocean any time I want. In this painting, sunset is an explosive kaleidoscope of color. Tomorrow’s sunset will be completely different. In fact, I could paint a sunset every day for the rest of my life and never repeat myself.

Sunrise from Beech Hill, earlier this month.

CODA: I spent some time yesterday perusing Black Friday deals on my phone. Here are my observations:

  • The deals I saw were heavily slanted towards electronics. How many of these does a person need?
  • Nothing seemed like a great deal to me; I compared Black Friday prices with commonly-available discount prices on products I know. I was underwhelmed.
  • Black Friday shopping is boring, whether in person or online.

That leads me to remind you about one of my current anti-Black-Friday deals: you can get 10% off this or any other painting on this website until the end of the year by using the code THANKYOUPAINTING10.

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025: