Red Sailboat Watercolor

Just a little watercolor in my sketchbook of my three favorites from the previous post.

Sailboat Sketches

We've been out on our boat (sort of like floating car camping). While on a mooring in Boothbay Harbor I did some drawing practice. With our boat and the subject sailboat both swinging on their moorings, it was a bit of a challenge! After a while I was starting to get it. The three below are my favorites.

Paint Night at the Gallery

 Painters enjoying Paint Night at the Gallery

 A quick demo of one of the steps

One of the paintings in process

We had a great time at Paint Night at the Gallery on Saturday night. Yarmouth Frame and Gallery was transformed into a studio. Nine painters did some beautiful work, sipped some wine, and had a lot of fun. Beth Newman, our gallerist, has posted lots of nice photos on Facebook, take a look.

Thanks, Janett, for the good advice!

"Penobscot Bay"

"Penobscot Bay"

8"x10" oil on linen panel
$200

Minivan packed for Castine; 2 boxes of frames, paint box, tripod, backpack, panels, plastic box for racking wet paintings

 Rails with paintings

Rails without paintings

"Penobscot Bay" was painted during the Castine Plein Air Festival last month. As I was packing it up for a show, I realized that I hadn't posted it, so here you go. And along with it are a few photos of gear. The back of the minivan turned out to be very useful. Not only did everything fit easily (and there are two tripods and paintboxes in there, I like to have a backup), but when it rained the first morning, I set up the easel inside the back, and stood underneath the open lid. The painting and I were both dry. Another useful thing are these little rails from Artwork Essentials, who make the EasyL box that I used at the festival. For this trip I took a large plastic box to set the rails inside of. On trips by plane, I pick up a cardboard box at the grocery store after I get there. Using these, the paintings are safe and get a chance to dry.

Value to Color Study

Value to Color Study

6"x6" oil on Raymar panel

I'm teaching a painting class at River Arts in Damarsicotta, which is really fun. Today was our third class, and we worked on adding color to the value sketches that we'd painted last week. Check out the small spots of color (blue) on the background, and (red) on the top apple. The idea is to first mix what you think is the right value of the color needed for a given part of the painting. Then put a spot of it on the value sketch, squint, and if the value is right, it will disappear. If it's lighter or darker than the value sketch, remix and add another spot. It took mixing three spots of light blue before we all agreed the middle one was right. Once we'd agreed on the two reds, I painted a bit of the still life, and we had some fun with the reflected color on the right-most apple.

Sun Seekers

Sun Seekers

9"x12" oil on Raymar panel
$200

Our local vet's office has a magnificent stand of sunflowers surrounding the building, and they've been kind enough to let me paint there. Tomorrow I'll show them the result of my first effort. I plan to paint there again.

Join me at River Arts in Damariscotta on Friday at 5PM for a demo of, you guessed it, sunflowers.

Only three spots remain for Paint Night at the Gallery on August 23rd. Call Yarmouth Frame and Gallery at 207-846-7777 if you want to reserve one of them. I'd love to have you join us.

Professional Photography

"Boatyard" 10"x10" oil on canvas panel 

Photographed by Jay York, reduced to 72 ppi

"Boatyard" 10"x10" oil on canvas panel 

Photographed by me, reduced to 72 ppi

"Lobstah" 8"x8" oil on canvas panel

Photographed by Jay York, reduced to 72 ppi

"Lobstah" 8"x8" oil on canvas panel

Scanned, reduced to 72 ppi

"Lobstah" 8"x8" oil on canvas panel

Photographed by me, reduced to 72 ppi

In preparation for offering prints and cards of a few of my favorite paintings, I wondered how much better they'd look if I had the paintings professionally photographed. Jay York, in Portland, had been recommended, so I took four paintings to him. Above are the results for two of them. Note how much clearer the color is in those taken by Jay. I don't know if you can tell with all of them reduced to 72 ppi, but his are also much sharper. I've also included a scan in the case of "Lobstah", done on my home printer, with no adjustments made. What do you think? Was the ~$9 each worth it?

Kodiak Pet Portrait

Kodiak

7"x5" oil on linen panel

SOLD

A portrait of my friend's Grace and Ryan's dog, Kodiak. Isn't he a sweetheart?