Beech Hill 3

Another Beech Hill painting. Or should I call it a "study"? I mean, really, what's the difference?

Beech Hill 2

Another Beech Hill painting. It's about 30x15.

Beech Hill

Time for a landscape. After the snow. March 2017

Tugs

I rode the Scrambler up to Belfast and painted the tugboats - experimental approach - acrylic on 9x12 red primed OSB. Had Egon Schiele's "Houses On The Town Square In Klosterneuberg" in mind when I started but this ended up nothing like it. Didn't like it much at the conclusion in Belfast but found some redeeming qualities back in the studio.

I keep trying to make acrylic work for me - I just can't seem to get happy with it.

Yellow Submarine.

We all live in a "Yellow Submarine"... My submission for the "Wet Paint on the Weskeag" fundraiser for the Georges River Land Trust.

Searsmont Village

Motorcycle Diaries. Searsmont village sketches on 7/20. Watercolor and pencil in my sketchbook.

Mt. Battie

I hiked to the top of Mt. Battie and sketched the tower yesterday with my badass little dog. While I was sketching the sky was spitting a cold rain and three teenage boys were exploring around the tower. One boy read aloud from a plaque at the base of the tower to the two who climbed to the top -

"All I could see from where I stood
Was three long mountains and a wood;
I turned and looked another way,
And saw three islands in a bay."

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Camden Harbor

I'm testing out my sketching kit for a hike I have planned in a month or so. I walked down to the harbor and had a sandwich while I sketched this scene. There's a feeling of spring. Not many boats are in the harbor. And this one looks ready to take it's coat off and get out there

Susan

This is Susan. I met her about 25 years ago on one of my first trips to Maine to visit my mom. She was a macrobiotic cooking teacher and held cooking classes out of her home. I somehow convinced my mother (who was an excellent southern Paula Dean style cook) to join me. I remember driving out to Union to a beautiful compound of three or four stone and wood homes and gardens set thoughtfully into a natural landscape at the edge of some woods. We chopped vegetables from her garden, and cooked and laughed and made new friends and enjoyed an amazing dinner.

15x22 watercolor and pencil. #218

Patty

This is Patty. I met her in Montezuma, Costa Rica. I was at a Organico sketching a band that was playing there and she seemed to think my drawing was pretty interesting so we started chatting. I told her I lived in Maine and it turned out she and her husband were from Massachusetts and they were building a house down in Costa Rica. A week or so after we met I got a friend request on FB and here we are. That's really about all I know about Patty.

8x10 in my Grand Portrait Sketchbook digitally combined in Artrage with a sketch I did on the beach near Montezuma. #213

The House that Warren Built

At my brother's house in Austin, TX.

Alison

This is Alison. She is an artist living on Monhegan Island, a sparsely populated island about 10 miles off the coast of Maine that draws artists from around the world inspiring them with it's dramatic coastline and traditional way of life. She paints landscapes, still lifes, portraits, and figures with oils and pastels.

Just about every week during the fall, winter, and spring I see her at a life drawing session. We both like to get there early to get a good place to draw from. I usually sit to her right (perhaps I'm hoping some of her amazing talent will arc directly into me). One of my favorite parts of the evening is seeing the beautiful drawings and paintings she produces.

10.5x6 graphite and watercolor. #194

Longfellow Square

This is Longfellow Square in Portland, Maine - the intersection of State Street and Congress. The statue on the left is of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - one of America's most popular poets and much loved in Portland. I sat here last Sunday and sketched this scene. Many people walked by me as I was drawing - most of the ones that stopped appeared to be homeless. My experience with the homeless is limited to mostly seeing them when I'm in my car at busy intersections with signs asking for money. I would say, in the course of the hour and a half I spent sketching this out, maybe 15 or so stopped to see what I was doing. Nobody asked me for money - they just wanted to see the drawing. Some would chat for awhile. Others would toss out a compliment and move on. One guy offered to pay me to do a painting of his church. Now I know this is sad, but for the first time in my life, I didn't feel like I was on the other side of them. They weren't asking me for my money or help - we were just relating on equal terms - human to human. Isn't Art (and poetry) great at bringing us all together?

Frontin #4

Down in Rockland near the grain silos, this Coast Guard ship is having some work done on it. This a 10"x22" watercolor but I brought it into Artrage when I got back to repair a mistake I made with drawing the changes in the tide while I was painting. So it's kind of a hybrid watercolor/digital sketch.

Hurricane Island

Technically this is Frontin #3 but I liked the "Hurricane Island" title better. At Hurricane Outward Bound this morning. 9" x 22" Saunders Waterford paper.

Sugar Loaves

10x29 on Twinrocker paper

Workshop Paintings - Day 1

I'm taking a couple of watercolor workshops this Summer. The first is with Joseph Zbukcik, which I didn't know I was taking until Saturday. First day of painting and I learned a lot. He did a demo in the morning and we copied that approach and subject and we did the same thing in the afternoon. 

Frontin #2

This is the Camden Public Library - 10"x29" on Twinrocker watercolor paper

Frontin #1

At Payson's Park this morning in Warren with Ron. 12"x24" Fluid Watercolor. 

Bartlett's Cove

This one was for Tess and Ryan. 10"x29" watercolor, ink, and pencil on Twinrocker handmade paper.