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Tag: Eric Jacobsen

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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:

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Marine art finally escapes drydock

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

This painting benefitted from a good long spell in drydock.

I started it a few years ago on the docks at Camden harbor, for Camden on Canvas. Thatā€™s the brainchild of Colin Page, and itā€™s become a great venue for marine art as well as a successful fundraiser for the Camden Library. (Iā€™m happy to say Iā€™m in again for 2024.)

It was hot, I was parched, and for once the creak of wood and water wasnā€™t moving me. I threw down my brushes in disgust.

ā€œI hate it,ā€ I spat out as I scraped the canvas down. I almost never do that, but I was riled.

ā€œI like it,ā€ said Bjƶrn Runquist.

ā€œItā€™s not that bad,ā€ said Eric Jacobsen.

ā€œWhat is the matter with you?ā€ asked Ken DeWaard, who never cuts me any slack.

Whatā€™s the point of having friends if you never listen to them?

The only part I really liked was the filtered, haloed sun, but that wasnā€™t enough to hang a whole painting on. Still, I respect their opinions, so I didnā€™t use the canvas as a sail for my dinghy. Instead, it went into my giant pile of unfinished marine art. It was bigger than most of the others, so I was constantly catching it with my foot or in the corner of my eye. Gradually, it grew on me.

Its spars (the things the sails hang from) are so delicate that they look as if they couldnā€™t possibly survive the North Atlantic. Even worse, they looked cockeyed to me. ā€œYouā€™re a better draftsman than that,ā€ I chided myself.

I almost never take reference photos, preferring to whine at my friends if I discover I need one. However, I did find a picture from the dock that day. Those spars looked just as cockeyed in the photo as they did in my painting. The only other square-rigger I know of at rest is Cutty Sark, in Greenwich, England. Her spars are perpendicular to the keel, but sheā€™s not exactly docked; sheā€™s more trapped, like an insect in amber.

Cutty Sark stuck in her permanent installation in Greenwich. Sheā€™s going nowhere. Photo courtesy of Ethan Doyle White/

I called my resident expert on all matters maritime, Captain John Foss. He told me that, despite the name, a square-rigger can, in fact, turn its spars. They can be angled from running straight across the vessel (‘square’), to a beam reach or even a close reach.

I learn something new every day, darn it.

Marine art is complicted

Many years ago, I was wrapping up a painting on the Camden docks when two young salts stopped to look at it.

ā€œShould we tell her?ā€ asked one, quietly enough that he thought I couldnā€™t hear.

ā€œNah.ā€

I might love painting boats, but I donā€™t think Iā€™ve ever done a spot of marine art that didnā€™t include an error or omission. Sometimes theyā€™re intentional, for compositional purposes. Sometimes theyā€™re oversights, and sometimes theyā€™re mistakes. I think this one is fine, but if not, one of my friends is sure to tell me.

Iā€™m in Britain onĀ another lovely, long, blister-inducing hike. Iā€™ve turned my phone off and while Iā€™m gone, Laura will be running the office. JustĀ email meĀ as usual if you have questions or problems registering for a class or workshop. (Who am I kidding? She fixes all that stuff anyway.)

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Main Street, Owls Head

Main Street, Owls Head, 16X20, oil on gessoboard, $1,623 unframed, includes shipping in continental US.

Before I get into this, we’ve updated all our 2024 workshops. We’ll be sending out coupons with discount codes soon; if you’re not on my mailing list already, sign up in the box to the right.

Each week until the end of the year I’ll be giving you a behind-the-scenes look at one of my favorite paintings. These are paintings that are available for you to purchase unless otherwise noted.

Plein air painters sometimes avoid work by endless texting about possible locations. Or, we can get into our cars and drive around, but with gas hovering at $4 a gallon that hasn’t been practical. A good artist can make a painting with the thinnest tissue of material, so you know that when we do that, we’re ducking something.

The empty house with the wild lupines, private collection.

I can almost always persuade Eric Jacobsen to come out to Owl’s Head. It has great fishing shacks and a stellar working harbor. The tiny hamlet of Owls Head has resisted the tarting up that’s marred parts of midcoast Maine. Plus, the Owl’s Head General Store has reopened and my sources say it is as good as ever.

A view of the same house from below on a very foggy day; I have no idea where this painting has larked off to.

There’s a house in Owl’s Head that’s been empty for around eight years (I heard it recently changed hands again; may this time be the charm.) I don’t know its specific story, but the phenomenon of the abandoned house has always bothered me. Sometimes it’s about lack of jobs in an area, or getting behind on taxes. Equally, it can be caused by friction between heirs, divorce or other ructions, which tear away at property as much as they tear away at human beings. But a house is a middle-class person’s biggest asset, so letting one moulder seems all wrong.

This is not a painting of that abandoned house. Rather, I painted it from that house’s front yard. I’d intended to paint the house itself once again, but as Eric and I stood scoping our vistas, I realized that I’d always wanted to paint the view downhill. That hip-roofed foursquare house is a coastal Maine gem, and its owners have carefully preserved its charm.

Fishing boat at Owl’s Head, private collection.

Eric set up looking uphill, and I set up looking downhill. This is where I developed my own version of Ken DeWaard’s Park-N-Paint, where I sit in a lawn chair in the bed of my truck with my feet up on a box. It’s so relaxed that Colin Page once asked me, “Carol, can’t you at least look like you’re working?”

That illusion of inertia must work, because when I was done, Eric said, “that’s great, Carol.” For once I agreed with him. It remains one of my favorite paintings.

Main Street, Owl’s Head is 16X20 and available for $1623. The whiff of seawater and sunlight is included free.

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

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When you overdo it

My kit in happier days, at the Red Barn Gallery in Port Clyde. Come to think of it, Port Clyde has also seen happier days.

There’s healthy hard work, and then there’s the point at which efficiency rapidly descends into chaos. I must have been at that point on Saturday because, after carefully wrapping frames and paintings at the end of the 19th Annual Sedona Plein Air Festival, I managed to lose my painting pack. Although my paints and pochade box were in my suitcase instead of in the pack, it’s still a big issue. I’ve contacted the Sedona Arts Center and my car rental firm to see if either has it. Until they respond, I wait.

My exhaustion comes not just from my teaching and painting schedule but from the hours spent filming and editing Seven Protocols for Successful Oil Painters. Four are done; the fifth is almost in the bag. My intention was to finish them by the end of this calendar year, but that’s looking impossible.

My kit going canoeing in Camden Harbor.

Exhaustion has many harmful effects on the human brain, including cognitive impairment, emotional instability (quit saying that; I’m fine!), reduced attention span, impaired judgment, and a greater risk of accidents. Add to that the stress I alluded to here, and I had set up a perfect storm. However, I still don’t know how I could have missed a full-sized backpack full of painting tools as I was packing to come home.

“When life hands you lemons, make lemonade,” my husband told me. “Tell your reading audience what was in that pack and why you have those things.”

Eric Jacobsen and I were trudging up Beech Hill in the early spring when he noticed I was carrying my gear in a crummy old messenger bag. “You have good backpacks for hiking,” he pointed out. “Why don’t you buy one for painting, which you do every day?” That’s why I bought a Kelty backpack. Although expensive, it’s paid for itself many times over. The exact model I have is no longer made, but this is a close approximation. It’s sized for women, but they make a similar pack for men. If I’m carrying a small pochade box, I can hike long distances without hurting my elderly back.

My seedy but functional pochade boxes rely on a Red Devil scraper to keep them going. I don’t clean them, I just scrape out any paint that’s started to get sticky.

Two years ago, my students got sick of me telling them, “you need good brushes for watercolors, but you can paint with sticks in oils,” and bought me this fantastic set from Rosemary & Co. I added a few Isabey Chungking bristle brushes and three long-handle flats for laying in flat fields of color. Needless to say, I have great sentimental attachment to that brush set.

The only other important thing is my brush-washing canister, but I misplace them so often it hardly signifies.

In the miscellany category, there’s my Bristol-board sketchbook-my dearest friend-and a mechanical pencil from Staples. Eric Jacobsen also recommended this Princeton Catalyst wedge for moving paint around (I swear it only cost me $2 last year). I have a marking stylus given to me by my friend and monitor Jennifer Johnson, and a 4″ plastic putty knife I use as a straight-edge. Then there’s my Red Devil scraper, key to keeping my pochade boxes in their seedy but workable condition. And of course, there are bottle caps I use instead of palette cups, assorted S-hooks and other random hardware, and painting rags.

The problem with losing my sketchbooks is that I never know what drawings are in them. This appears to be a sketch of my depleted firewood pile.

I had pulled my paints out along with my pochade box, but my pack still held my lucky 1-pint Gamsol bottle, which has been refilled endlessly and has traveled around the world with me. There was also a small bottle of stand oil.

Last but certainly not least, there were these inexpensive mesh bags I bought from Amazon last year on the advice of Casey Cheuvront. They keep me organized-can’t you tell?

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Monday Morning Art School: simplifying shapes in the landscape

Thinking about the landscape as a series of planes will help you create depth in your painting. 

Ice Bound Locks, John F. Carlson, courtesy Vose Galleries

When Eric Jacobsen told us that he was teaching the theory of angles and consequent values in his recent workshop, I was baffled by the big words. “What’s that when it’s at home?” I asked him. Ken DeWaard was equally confused, responding in a torrent of emojis.

“C’mon, guys, it’s John F. Carlson 101!” Eric exclaimed. Bjƶrn Runquist immediately checked, and announced that there was nothing about any angles on page 101. (Actually, it’s in chapter 3; I checked.)

It’s no wonder that Eric’s no longer returning our calls.

Sylvan Labyrinth, John F. Carlson, courtesy of Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

All kidding aside, Carlson’s Guide to Landscape Painting is a classic. His theory, although it has a high-flown title, is actually quite intelligible to even the meanest intellects (and you know who you are, guys).

“Every good picture is fundamentally an arrangement of three or four large masses,” Carlson began. That’s as good an organizing principle as any in art. Value is what makes form visible, so we should see, translate, simplify and organize form into value masses.

Carlson wrote that any landscape would contain four groups of values bouncing off three major planes:

  • The horizontal ground plane;
  • The angle plane represented by mountain slopes or rooftops;
  • The upright plane, which is perpendicular to the ground plane, such as trees.

In the middle of the day-our most common circumstance for painting-the value structure would be as follows:

  • The sky is our light source. It should be the highest value in our painting.
  • The ground plane gets the most light bouncing off it, so it should be the next-lightest plane.
  • The angle planes such as rooftops or mountain slopes, are the next lightest planes.
  • The upright objects in our painting, such as trees, walls or people, should be the darkest value element.
Snow Lyric, John F. Carlson, courtesy of The Athenaeum

That doesn’t mean that the shapes are crudely simplified, as a glance at Carlson’s own paintings confirms. The shapes can be beautiful, elegant, complex, and lyrical without too much value overlap.

Thinking about the landscape as a series of planes will help you create depth in your painting. However, it can be tricky to see the landscape as a series of planes rather than objects. It can be helpful to keep each value group completely separate, with no overlap of values, but, in reality, there will always be overlap.

Your assignment is to find a photo among your own snapshots and reduce it to a series of four values. Then paint it.

As you try to integrate this idea into your painting, exaggerate the separation of planes.

Of course, there are many circumstances where this doesn’t hold true-where the sky is leaden and darker than a snow plane, or when the fading evening light is hitting the vertical plane rather than the ground. But understanding it will help you paint the exceptions in a more arresting way.

This post originally appeared in 2021, but the information bears repeating.

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

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You canā€™t put a price on art, or can you?

My painting for the 2022 Camden on Canvas, called So Many Boats! 24X36, oil on canvas, Private collection.

“I think when we ‘paint for ourselves,’ that’s when growth can happen. Our work just might push to a different level,” Barb Walker commented recently on Facebook.

“The whole burden of making a living selling artwork can have a devastating effect on one’s work,” Eric Jacobsen responded. “It keeps us in repetition mode and causes us to play it safe. Charlie Movalli posed a great question once. He asked, ‘Do you paint to be understoodā€¦or do you paint to understand?'”

My 2021 painting for Camden on Canvas, called View from Bald Mountain, 36X24, oil on canvas, private collection.

I’ve had times where I stopped selling entirely to concentrate on improving my skills, and times when I produced very personal work that will never sell in my lifetime. But I’m more cynical than Eric and Barb. I need to eat, and I’m not much good at anything else. I either sell paintings or take a job as a greeter at Walmart.

Somehow our culture has created the myth that artists are above thinking about the business of art. “I’ve never been in it for the money,” said one friend (who nonetheless has a family to support). Nobody expects their doctors or lawyers to be motivated by altruism, and most of my painting buddies have spent at least as much time learning their craft as a professional-school graduate. (The BFA is just the beginning, friends.)

Ever-changing Camden Harbor, 36X24, oil on canvas, $3,188.00 includes shipping in continental US.

It’s counterproductive for artists to buy into this myth. If we don’t set a high value on our artwork, who will?

Above it or afraid?

Sometimes, people refuse to engage in the marketplace because theyā€™re afraid of failure. Painting for public consumption can make us better painters, however, as we strive to connect with an audience.

It doesn’t help that there’s some stupendously awful work out there masquerading as ‘art.’

This week a reader sent me a photo of an object painted by an ‘artist’ as a fundraiser. It was incompetent by every measure of design and execution. “It seems almost like satire. It highlights the unfortunate reality that anyone can call themselves an artist, and far too many do,” my reader commented.

I spend a great deal of time teaching painters the objective criteria for critique. I wish someone would do the same for art fans. “I don’t know art but I know what I like,” is a great starting point. However, it’s not enough. If you want a painting that will continue to speak to you for years to come, it helps to understand what makes a good painting. And that’s not opinion; it rests on a thousand years of tradition and critical thinking.

As with every philosophical endeavor, understanding starts with a common language. When artists carry on about things like lost-and-found line or pictorial depth, they’re not just trying to sound smart and smarmy. These are real factors that affect the staying power of a painting. And they’re as relevant in abstraction as in figurative art.

Camden Harbor, Midsummer, oil on canvas, 24X36 $3,985.00 framed includes shipping in continental US.

Two events this week

Kay Sullivan, Eric Jacobsen, Jill Valliere and Jim Vandernoot will be featured at the Red Barn Gallery‘s Strictly Invitational show this evening from 5-7 PM. That’s located in the heart of scenic Port Clyde village, across the street from the General Store. They’re a powerful lineup that’s worth driving out to see.

Camden on Canvas is next weekend, July 21-23, in the equally picturesque village of Camden, ME. There are too many great artists to list them by name here, but Colin Page, in particular, deserves a shout-out. Each year, he wears two hats, as organizer and participant. He and the library staff have put together a fantastic event in just a few short years. I strongly encourage you to come out and see the art.

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

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Contemporary impressionism done right

Banks of the Oyster River, Eric Jacobsen, oil on panel 16 x 20, regular $2300, sale $1150

I brought my laptop with me intending to write my blog on my vacation, only to realize the combination of camping and nine people has outdone me. (Not my dumbest move yet this week; I also brought my summer nightgown. To camp. In the Nevada wilderness. In February.

Orange and Blue, Eric Jacobsen, oil on panel 16 x 20, regular $2300, sale $1150

I’ll be taking off, but meanwhile I want to alert you to a Truly Great Deal. Eric Jacobsen is one of the best impressionist painters of our generation, and also my good buddy. He’s one of the few painters I’d like to study with right now, to steal all his secrets of brushwork.

Rocky Beach, Eric Jacobsen, oil on panel 16 x 20, regular $2300, sale $1150

Eric’s having a half-off sale on selected works on his website, which you can find here. Some of them he painted with me around, lucky fellow.) There’s not a huge selection, and when they’re gone, they’re gone. Enjoy!

Pemaquid Point Lighthouse, Eric Jacobsen, oil on panel 16 x 20, regular $2300, sale $1150

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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 Americaā€™s beauty spots. Why Iā€™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 friendsā€™ kitchen with chocolate when my phone rang. It was Eric Jacobsen, calling to wish me well at the 18th Annual Sedona Plein Air. Thatā€™s whatā€™s brought me to Arizona.

Ericā€™s a great listener. Iā€™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 Iā€™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: Iā€™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. Theyā€™re traveling here by UPS. As of this morning, they still havenā€™t arrived, but I have a small reserve in my kit. Ed was my monitor at my 2022 workshop in Sedona and Iā€™m hoping heā€™ll do next yearā€™s, too. (Itā€™s called Towards Amazing Color, and it sold out last year.)

As I mentioned Monday, frames make me nuts. Edā€™s a dab hand at woodworking, and heā€™s offered to help me mend my damaged frames. Thatā€™s a generous offer, since he is also painting in this event. But thatā€™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. ā€œI fail to see any beauty in this landscape,ā€ I grumbled. I felt better when I arrived at my friendsā€™ house. Iā€™ve known Jim and Ellen since our salad days. Thatā€™s a uniquely comfortable relationship that involves knowing each otherā€™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. Thereā€™s a point around Black Canyon City where you cross a ridge, the saguaro cactuses giving way to the conifers of higher elevations. ā€œThis is the most beautiful place in the world!ā€ I exclaimed.

And thereafter, every ridge I crossed was tinged with lovelinessā€”not simple grandeur, but the ineffable beauty of Creation. My pulse quickened. Iā€™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. Itā€™s also in not coveting anything but simply experiencing it in the moment. Iā€™m happy to be here, as I have been happy to be in all the places itā€™s been my good fortune to visit. When I get home, Iā€™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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Weā€™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. ā€œKeep it for the week,ā€ she said. Iā€™ve taken her up on the offer so seriously Iā€™m almost sleeping in it. Itā€™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. ā€œIā€™ve learned how to open the hood,ā€ 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 isnā€™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 didnā€™t matter, as weā€™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. Iā€™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. Iā€™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 itā€™s supposed to be revelatory, but we creators frequently donā€™t like what we see in our own work. A psychoanalyst could have a field day with that.

ā€œThe essential thing,ā€ Henri Matisse wrote, ā€œis to put oneself in a frame of mind which is close to that of prayer.ā€ Apparently, Matisseā€™s friends were quieter than mine. Iā€™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 canā€™t overthink what youā€™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.

ā€œA picture must possess a real power to generate light and for a long time now Iā€™ve been conscious of expressing myself through light or rather in light,ā€ Matisse also wrote. In the following century, that became the major mantra of painters: weā€™re not painting objects, weā€™re painting light.

Thatā€™s great as long as the light cooperates, but this week has been one of morose and glowering skies. Weā€™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 Homerā€™s paintings.

Itā€™s raining now, and Iā€™ll take the morning to frame and enter my paintings onto CAPAā€™s online system. Rae Oā€™Shea just stopped by on her way out to take photos. ā€œTheyā€™re talking frigid temperatures on the weekend, and possible flurries,ā€ she said.

Why didnā€™t I bring my winter jacket?