Scotch

Laphroaig and Glass

10"x8" oil on canvas panel

What to paint in winter? Thinking about Valentine's Day coming up I got out a bottle of brandy and a couple of glasses. Hopefully you'll see that painting in a few days. I thought I should practice first and so grabbed a bottle of my favorite scotch, Laphroaig, and a single glass.

I set up the still life next to a window, with a black backdrop and a white linen napkin as the base. and took a few photos since the light was changing fast. Here are a few process shots.

Value under painting in yellow ochre and ultramarine blue

 Putting in the darks

First pass of color (note the change to a purple background)

Painting the background a different color than what I could see was of course not such a great idea. I  immediately knew that the bottom of the glass was now too dark. So the next morning I went to JoAnne Fabrics and bought a piece of purple fabric to replace the black.

Notice also that the bottle leans a little in the process photos and the ellipse at the top of the glass is crooked and bigger on the bottom then the top. So I had to fix all that. For a discussion of how to get the ellipse correct in this kind of painting, see this great post by my buddy Carol L. Douglas.

Beaver Brook Winter

Beaver Brook Winter

8"x10" oil on canvas panel

We had our first snow of the season today. And to prepare for it, I painted this a couple of weeks ago in my class with Robert Abele. A bunch of us were trying out a limited palette of yellow ochre, cadmium red, black, and white. The gray mixtures turn almost blue with this approach. Perhaps this year I'll be able to paint in the snow at Beaver Brook. Looking forward to that, maybe there will even be a little blue sky.

Buoy #8

Buoy #8 White and Green

6"x6"oil on Raymar panel

This is the last buoy, at least for a while. I particularly like how the water looks like puddles, which happens when it's relatively calm.

The eight buoys will be part of the holiday show at Yarmouth Frame and Gallery this year. The opening is on Saturday, November 26th from 4-7PM. I'm very pleased that one of the buoys was chosen for the advertisement! Check it out below with the others.

Buoy #4

Buoy #1

Buoy #2

 

Buoy #3

Buoy #5

Buoy #6

Buoy #7

Lobster Buoy 6

 Lobster Buoy 6 Pink and Green

6"x6" oil on Raymar panel

This summer we saw several lobster buoys with a flags on their sticks, which certainly makes them easier to see. I particularly liked this one because of the colors.

"Jedi"

Jedi I

8"x8" oil on Raymar panel

Jedi II

8"x8" oil on Raymar panel 

Above are two versions of a painting I've done as a gift for some friends. The first one is the value under painting with lots of burnt sienna (transparent) and white canvas. In the second version, opaque paint has been used over all. I'd love your opinion on the two, email or comment please! (And try to ignore the higher quality photograph on the first one.)

I'm even further behind on posting, so you'll see a few more over the next week.

Buoy #5

Buoy #5, Purple and Yellow

6"x6" oil on Raymar panel

I decided to go with a complementary color scheme for this buoy. It has a wonderful reflection in the photo, which I couldn't resist. I've still got a few more of these to finish, and I'll intersperse them with other subjects and whatever plein air painting the weather permits.

L'Esprit

 L'Esprit

8"x6" oil on Raymar panel

I had a blast today at Great Bay Boatyard painting this little gem. I love red boats, and when you add some flags, which started fluttering just when I got that stage of the painting, it was irresistible!

Lobster Buoy 4

Lobster Buoy 4 - Holiday

6"x6" oil on Raymar panel

I was asked to make one of the buoys with a holiday theme, so it could be used for marketing holiday events. When the water is reflecting the trees and it's a bit overcast, you get water that looks like this. With a red and white buoy, it's kind of festive, don't you think?

Low Tide at Cove Road

 

Low Tide at Cove Road

5"x7" oil on linen panel

Note: the mud is pinker than I've managed to capture with this photo!

Working on the first version of this painting on Monday afternoon, I was up against a stiff breeze, and wedged myself against the easel to keep things from blowing away. Low back pain followed the next day, so I've been stretching and taking it easy for a bit.

Sadly, I don't a photo of the first pass before I scraped it. But here's the scraped results, which I liked a lot better than the cool mud in the first pass.

Harbor Master

Harbor Master

6"x6" oil on Raymar panel
 SOLD

I painted this one on the Freeport town dock, under the harbor master's office, which is up a flight of stairs. His boat was tied to the dock, but I could still see the bright light hitting the left side. Simplifying the engine was fun.

Passage to Seal Bay

"Passage to Seal Bay"

8"x10"

oil on canvas panel

Seal Bay is a beautiful unspoiled part of Vinalhaven Island in Penobscot Bay. It's a must stop for us on our annual boat trip to the area. At high tide, a small boat can make it through this passage into Vinal Cove, and near the end of the cove there is a reversing tidal falls, which everyone loves to go up and down in their dinghies. This year the tide was a bit high when we went through, so there was no falls action. This painting was done from a photo taken as we headed back through the passage to Seal Bay where our boat was anchored.

Lobster Buoy 3

Buoy 3 Red and Green

6"x6" oil on Raymar panel

This is an unusual buoy, because it doesn't have a stick, but I couldn't resist the colors. The lobsterman will grab the line tied to the small end of the buoy using a gaff. I'm thinking of getting one of those for our boat, because we often pick up mooring lines that are hard to grab with a standard boat hook.

Lobster Buoy 2

Orange White and Green Buoy

6"x6" oil on Raymar panel

Today I did the value under paintings for three more buoy paintings. This is one of my favorites, I love the tricolored stick. I may replace the photo if I can get one with a better color reproduction of the water.

Here's the under painting. I wiped off more of the dark before painting over it, to minimize mixing with the upper paint layer.

Red White And Blue

Red White and Blue

8"x10" oil on canvas panel

Sometimes I look back through finished paintings to see if there are any that could be improved. This one was a good example, and it includes a couple of mooring buoys. Below is the previous version. Which one do you like better?

Thanks to Suzanne and Gail for good suggestions.

Lobster Buoy 1

Lobster Buoy 1 (Orange and Black)

6"x6" oil on Raymar panel

Now that my workshop with Anne Blair Brown is over, I can focus on the theme for the September 30 Paintings in 30 Days. And that's buoys. In our coastal waters, buoys are often used to mark locations. If you've been out on the water, you've seen the green cans and red nuns that are navigational markers. Mooring balls are also buoys, in that they mark the location of a mooring on the bottom, to which a boat can be tied up. And finally, my favorite, are lobster buoys, also called pots, which mark the location on the bottom of a string of lobster traps, usually one at each end.

Above is my first in the series, Orange and Black.

House on Monhegan

House on Monhegan (finished)

8"x10" oil on canvas panel
$125
click here to buy

How she looked when I left Monhegan

At the end of class last Wednesday

That's me

A couple of weeks ago I painted on Monhegan Island with Mary Sheehan Winn and Carol Douglas. What a blast we had! I completed a couple of small oil on paper sketches and two paintings on the island, but I wiped one of the paintings and should have done the same with the other one. I brought back three unfinished paintings to work on at home. Henry Isaacs once said that starting a painting on location is the most important thing. I can see his point. If you can stop before you loose the freshness, you can regain the wonder that began the painting and hopefully not overwork it when you aren’t pressured for time.

This was my last painting of the trip, started while we waited for the ferry to take us home.

The top image is the finished painting, the second image shows my initial work on Monhegan, and the bottom painting image shows work on the painting during last week’s painting class with Rob Abele (see previous post about Rob). I finished it the next day.

A visit to Monhegan is in some ways a trip back in time, as there are few vehicles on the island beyond the pickups used by the inns and lobstermen. And even fewer televisions available to guests. There are only a few places to get something to eat, and only the Island Inn and the Trailing Yew serve dinner on weekdays. To finish my tourist guide, my favorite place to stay is Monhegan House. It’s a historic rooming house, absolutely charming, one of the cleanest places I’ve ever stayed, and they have a fabulous breakfast. And it’s a great bargain. If you are heading to the island alone, do ask for one of the rooms on the 4th floor, the garrets as Mary calls them. Wonderful!

A Good Teacher

Pomegranate with Square Brass Pot

6"x6 oil on Raymar panel

I’ve taken a lot of art workshops, with some very good teachers. And often they're teaching along a similar vein. But sometimes we have to be at the right place to hear it, or maybe we need to hear it many times. This spring I decided to try and find a teacher near me, whose work I admired, who appreciated the same painters that I do, and from whom I could learn over a period of time. And I think I’ve done that with Rob Abele. I take a weekly class with Rob, and as new people join the class, it’s great to hear him very consistently giving the same advice to each of us, whatever our level. Whenever he does a quick demo for someone, I wander over and watch too. Twice I’ve had a private lesson, which is very helpful. In those lessons Rob sets up a killer still life that will take me out of my comfort zone.

Below is my painting at the end of our session of still life #1.

Below is Rob’s. Note that we are painting at the same time, so we don’t have the same viewpoint.

I love the gestural way that Rob paints!

Below is my painting of still life #2 after “improving” it at home. Unfortunately I don’t have a photo at the send of the session. One thing I've learned is that I'm best painting alla prima, and finishing the painting in one sitting. Going back in, I usually muck it up.

And below is Rob’s version. Wow!

I was a whiner on this last one, having somewhat of an aversion to the fun house mirror aspect of the reflection in the rounded brass vase. So when I got home I set up and painted the still life shown at the top of the post, including the shiniest object I could find.

I know I’m learning something with Rob's approach and the consistency that studying with the same teacher over time brings. Thanks Rob!

Sparkle

Sparkle

8"x10" oil on canvas panel

There are some things that are hard to paint from life, and this is an example. Even if I was able to set my painting gear in a boat running parallel to these guys, they’d surely tack and head off in another direction before I finished the painting. So this one was painted from a photo. And more important, it was painted upside down. Turning a photo upside down is a time-honored approach artists use to paint shapes rather than “things”. And it works.

Here’s a progress shot of my second attempt at this painting, which was done right-side up. At this point, I wiped it off, it just wasn’t good enough. The first attempt had been wiped off at the drawing stage. And the third attempt also. That’s when I turned the whole thing upside down. What a difference, don’t you agree?

Second try at Sparkle

Doubling Point Light House

Doubling Point Lighthouse

8"x8" oil on Raymar panel

Don’t you just love lighthouses? I do. It’s easy to imagine them lighting the way in a storm. And then there's the solitude of the lighthouse keeper’s life. That would probably last about a day for me! Lighthouses can also be fun to paint. They show different faces as the sun moves across the sky and the tide ebbs and flows. When we’re out on our boat, I always have the camera ready when a lighthouse comes into view.

A few years ago my niece and I took a road trip with a goal of visiting as many lighthouses as we could. This little gem, on the Kennebec River, just south of Bath, Maine, was one of our favorites. It was commissioned in 1989, fifteen years after the founding of Bath Ironworks, just upstream. It’s not much taller than a person, and is just exquisite. You can walk out and around it, over the water It’s easy to get to by road, and the lovely people who own the property will likely let you park, but please ask first. Or, you can see it from one of the tour boats that operate out of Boothbay Harbor, along with several other lighthouses. It's a great boat ride. This painting was done from of several photos I took as we went by on our boat a couple of years ago.

Here’s some more information about the lighthouse, and about the boat tours.

And by the way, I painted this one mostly upside down. More about that in a future post.

Sleeping In

"Sleeping In"

12"x12" oil on Raymar panel

The wind on the coast of Maine comes up in the afternoon and generally dies at sunset. Early in the morning it’s usually very calm, and that’s when fisherman (lobstermen included) go out to do their work. But not always. We’ve run into some interesting situations, cruising the coast in our boat over the last 25 years. 

For example, why is no one lobstering on Sunday? I’m always taking pictures of lobster boats, and especially like to see them working. But in the summer they don’t appear on Sundays. Maine state law explains why: 

Closed Period - Title 12, Section 6440

It is against the law to raise or haul any lobster trap during closed periods.

• It is unlawful to haul lobster gear from ½ hour after sunset until ½ hour before sunrise between June 1st and October 31st.
• It is unlawful to haul lobster gear after 4:00 pm Eastern Daylight Savings Time, Saturday until ½ hour before sunrise the following Monday morning from June 1st to August 31st, both days inclusive.

Who knew? Now I know why these boats are sleeping in!