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Tag: rocks

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How to paint a lighthouse

Marshall Point, oil on archival canvasboard, 9X12, $696, includes shipping and handling in continental US.

If you paint at the Marshall Point Light, someone is bound to ask, “Did you know this lighthouse was in the movie Forrest Gump?” It’s a lovely lighthouse and deserves its status as an American icon. I’ve painted it and its approaches many times. There is nothing wrong with painting lighthouses (despite what art snobs say). However, that doesn’t mean you have to be obvious about it. Spend enough time with any lighthouse and you start seeing other things that interest you—the ubiquitous brick oil house, or the porch, or the surf spraying onto the rocky headlands.

Marshall Point Light stands on a bedrock outcropping that can be completely awash depending on the weather and the tide. It’s connected to the land and the keeper’s house by a long wooden walkway. Visitors usually walk out to the white brick tower, stop at the steel door, and turn around and walk back. There’s really nothing to see out there—unless you lean over the railing and examine the bedrock.

A basalt dike.

Most of what is exposed is metamorphic rock that has been highly deformed by geologic pressures. Interlayered quartzite and gray mica schist are wildly contorted. Dikes of younger black basalt crosscut this metamorphic rock. Even though I don’t want to paint those formations in detail, I’m still fascinated by them every time I’m in Port Clyde.

On this day, Poppy Balser was visiting. We didn’t have a lot of time before the tide turned, so we set out to do quick sketches. I’m happy that I focused on the rocks.

How to paint a lighthouse

If I were visiting Maine I’d want to paint a lighthouse. They’re iconic, beautiful, and historic. As with any new subject, I’d start with a view of the scene in its entirety. Some lighthouses, like Pemaquid Point, or the Portland Head Light, have keepers’ houses attached. These create a very pretty roofline rhythm. Others, like Owls Head or Marshall Point, have separated keepers’ houses. After I did one overall scenic painting, I’d start looking for details that interest me.

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The game is afoot

Surf at Cape Hedge, 9X12, Carol L. Douglas, available through Cape Ann Plein Air. All of these photos were taken under incandescent light this morning, so the color may not be true.

Back when I was raising children, they used to say (jokingly, I hope) that the oldest one was an experiment. You should throw that one out and try again once you knew something about parenting. That’s not true about my kids, but it is often true about my painting. I should have remembered that in the cold and rain the first morning at Cape Ann Plein Air (CAPA).

I blame it on trawler envy. We have fishing boats in Maine, but nothing like these big factories of the sea that they have in Gloucester. I took a moment to say thanks for all the fish of the ocean that feed so many of us. Then I set to work on the Jodrey State Fish Pier with Elaine Lisle and Richard Sneary.

Surf at Bass Rocks. 8X16, Carol L. Douglas, available through Cape Ann Plein Air.

The mizzle began to solidify into something resembling rain, so Dick (a watercolorist) packed up his easel and left. Elaine stayed and finished a lovely, bright, 10X10 square of the harbor. I struggled on until 1 PM, when—cold, wet and in need of a bathroom—I folded. Looking back at that start, I wish I’d quit hours earlier. The color and brushwork are fine. The composition violates my first rule of painting: don’t be boring.

I’ve been living in Maine long enough for its sedate driving habits to wear off my New York edges. I was dithering in an intersection when my phone rang. It was Eric Jacobsen. “Where are you?” he asked.

“Trying to turn onto Bass Avenue, and about to be killed by these fast Massachusetts drivers,” I muttered. Okay, that’s a paraphrase.

“Well, don’t do that,” he said in a reasonable voice. “Charles Newman, Mitch Baird, and I are at Bass Rocks. Come over here.”

That was all I needed to escape my slough of despond. Rocks, surf, and good company. The game, as Mr. Holmes said, was afoot.

Bass Rocks, 9X12, Carol L. Douglas, available through Cape Ann Plein Air.

CAPA’s quick draw is immensely popular, drawing about a hundred non-juried artists in addition to those of us in the juried show. This year it was at the Allyn Cox Reservation in Essex, which must be a beautiful property when you can stand upright to see it. My goal was simply to survive the gale force winds. I set up next to Jonathan McPhillips as he’s big, and I thought he’d be a good windbreak. I set my easel as low to the ground as I could. As soon as I saw Jonathan’s block-in, I knew he had a winner. It was a wonderful composition.

Stone Wall, 8X16, Carol L. Douglas, available through Cape Ann Plein Air.

Winds like those mean wild surf, so Eric, Mitch and I set off for Cape Hedge. It was difficult to paint, but all that dashing, crashing water made it so worthwhile. We worked small, because anything else would have blown away.

I know that Mondays are usually an art lesson, but I haven’t got it in me this morning. I’ll leave you with this utterly prosaic truth: if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. My first painting was horrible. My second was acceptable. My third was interesting, my fourth (quick draw) made me happy, and I really like my fifth one. Today is a new morning, and I’m off to beat the sunrise.  Later, friends.