"Fogged Inn" oil 6 x 8

Monhegan is gray this week.  Gray, foggy, occasional drizzle, yellow fog, blue fog, green fog, thin fog, thick fog... interesting.  It feels like a good week to read, hunker under a blanket, play games, drink tea, chat with friends, sketch ... but it's a great week to paint!  Painted on Fish Beach today, looking at the foggy Monhegan "skyline" across the beach.  Here's a few images of the painting.  My plan was to block in a foggy mass for the distant buildings including the iconic Island Inn with its cupola.  I like painting, holding a brush filled with paint against the subject to match color and value.  I massed in about 5 shapes of flat color to start.  The two photos below were taken at different stages; you can see how much the fog lifted.  Lots more detail became available in the distant buildings. 

When painting a moving target, such as sun and shadows, fog, clouds, waves, anything that is dynamic rather than static - you need to decide how much you will be willing to change from your original plan.  My default mode, today being no different, is to stick with the starting plan.  That's not a rule.  It's a suggestion. Is changing the plan based on changing conditions going to improve your painting?  If so, feel free. Make your choice with intentionality.  

In the case of "Fogged Inn", I kept the fog.  I was intrigued by the foggy silhouette.  The painting is almost finished, but the afternoon weather played out as FOG, fog, cloudy & gray, fog, sprinkle, RAIN!  I packed up at RAIN... as usual, I'll take a look at the painting over the next few hours and make a few adjustments.  I plan to do a little bit more modelling in the foggy distance.

Thanks for looking!  Please consider leaving me a comment.  I enjoy reading your thoughts. 

"Under Sail" oil 6 x 6

Our most recent Girls Just Wanna Paint challenge was based on this line from the e.e. cummings poem "Maggie and Milly and Molly and May" -

"For whatever we lose (like a you or a me) 

it's always ourselves we find in the sea." 

 

I have spent much of my life (so far) living near the sea, love the scents, the breeze, the sounds.  As a child, we had a summer house on a Cape Cod bay.  The first few years we owned it, before high school sports, and jobs, and schedules won out with their relentless demands and interruptions, we went to the house every weekend.  There would be a loud and frenetic packing of the station wagon each Friday afternoon and we'd head off on the hour+ drive down and over the bridge, with a quick stop at the A&P on the rotary just before the Canal.  We'd spend the weekend, playing cards, doing jigsaw puzzles, walking the beach, fishing, even playing an expanded game of hide and seek which took us, and invited friends, through yards, over shed roofs, under porches of the empty-for-the-winter cottages in the neighborhood.  We would enjoy a roast beef and potato dinner on Sunday night and pile back into the car, sleepy-eyed at 6AM Monday for a rapid drive back north, us tumbling out of the car into the school yard (in our plaid uniforms) as the bell was ringing to begin the day.

  

Now that I have my own family, I realize what coordination was involved to get a family of seven packed, and organized for these wonderful weekends.... resulting in two full days on the Cape!  I spent hours sitting on the end of the dock, feeling it float with the waves, listening to the creaks and groans of boats tugging at moorings, buoys, watching gulls drop shellfish on the wharf, listening to the lapping waves and enveloping myself if the sensory joy of the sea.  This month's challenge brought back those memories.  My painting conjures up that sea-air-in-the-face feeling that I crave when I'm away from the sea too long. 

Thanks for looking; feel free to share.

 

Back to Monhegan Island

 I am back on Monhegan Island, Maine this week, excited about the opportunities to paint, especially to paint my favorite subject here, Manana.  So far, Manana hasn't shown itself through fog, except for a few minutes last night.... I'm looking at fog's colors, yellow, pink, orange, and recalling many trips to London where the weather soundbite was often, "It's brightening!".. it's brightening here, off and on. I'm enjoying the variety of views... boats appear and disappear, the ferry's rumble arrives way before the ferry shows itself just yards before the dock, seagull silhouettes along foggy roof lines... what an interesting week it will be.  Here are a few of my past paintings of Manana.  Posting new ones soon!

"Caleb Creek - Waquoit" oil

I spent THE MOST LOVELY afternoon down on the Cape in Waquoit, a village of Falmouth.  Went to visit my friend Nell, at her wonderful home a short walk from Waquoit Bay.  It was a HOT day north of the bridge, but breezy and not-quite-as-hot on the bay.  We had lunch, talked about life, and I walked down to the creek to paint.  I met Goose, the wonder dog, Bandit, Alto and AJ, saw a big snake (twice), and painted to the backdrop of a busy, windy bay.  Ahhh.

I condensed the "marshscape" to fit some points of interest on both sides. Here are a couple of photos of the painting in progress.
 
The blue boxes:

What are those blue boxes in the marsh?  

The blue boxes, officially called Manitoba Flycatchers, are located in the marsh and attempt to capture greenhead flies.  There is nothing inside of the boxes, it is the blue color which attracts the flies. 

The boxes have become part of the Cape landscape to me..  I guess we have to thank the greenheads for not finding fluorescent orange to be their favorite color.  

Wonderful day, I'm heading back there soon.

"Hurricanes Hardly Happen" oil 10 x 10 ... and Eliza Doolittle

As you may have read, one of my favorite painting subjects is Manana, the small, relatively uninhabited island adjacent to Monhegan which creates its sheltered harbor.  (Someday, in my posts, I'll just say "Manana" without the explanation as though it's a component of everyone's vernacular as it is mine.) Each summer, I paint Manana from a few different vantage points, and am always excited by a new view.  "Hurricanes Hardly Happen" is my second painting of this view, commissioned by a friend who loved the original painting, "Hurricane Watch".
I wrangled with the name a bit... same subject, slightly different take, don't want to name it "Hurricane Watch II", "Hurricane Watch Jr", "Hurricane Watch Le Deux", etc.  Then, I heard Eliza Doolittle's voice in my head from "My Fair Lady" and knew the painting's name.  Don't you love "My Fair Lady"?   Click the link below to see a few seconds of its genius:

Eliza and Henry "Hurricanes Hardly..."

Heading back to Monhegan next week!  As always, thanks for looking and feel free to share. 

"White House" tweaking the image

April's Girls Just Wanna Paint challenge was "white".  I submitted the painting "White House", (to the right) a charming bungalow in a Quincy neighborhood, which I painted from the car while the late afternoon life in the small neighborhood unfolded.  There were joggers, and children on bikes, and commuters walking the few blocks from the bus, and at least two pizza deliveries, and dog walkers, and after-work gardeners.  It was charming. However, the painting needed some tweaking once I got it home.

Shown to the left are the original and then the tweaked painting.  The original painting was too cool, and wasn't conveying the late afternoon light.  The tree was too heavy and its branches stopped arbitrarily along the roof edge, creating unintended geometry.   I spent 20 minutes making a few modifications, simplifying the tree, extending its branches beyond the roof, softening the tree shadow, and warming the sunlit pieces of the house including the brick foundation.  I added some blue to the roof above the porch and added a warm indication of a window or door under the porch, made a few of the houses edges more crisp, and squared off.  Finished.  It reads better, conveys more of a sense of time of day.  Thanks for looking.

"Cool Fair" working title 12 x 12 oil

Every Memorial Day weekend, our local art association, North River Arts Society, hosts its Art Festival - this year was the 37th annual.  I paint on the street for both days, chatting with visitors.  It's great fun.  

This year, Sunday afternoon, our neighbors stopped by my easel.  Their 9-year-old daughter stepped right up to my easel and asked me if I painted the people right in front of me.  Interesting question.  I asked her if she'd like to help me with my painting.  Her parents and brothers were behind her shaking their heads; I guess afraid she'd do

 something terrible and unfixable.  No problem.  She was brave and game and stepped right up.  

First I asked her to fix the balloons, making some color more intense.  Then I asked her to add a figure on the right side, any color but blue.  She chose purple, and dove right in.  (BTW, no surprise with the purple, as she was wearing purple sweatshirt and Converse).  

She was wonderful, great listener, even held her paint brush like a pro. We had such a nice time together, and she reminded me why I love teaching so much... with her little intrepid-on-tiptoes self.   She and I are going to name the painting together.  "Cool Fair" is a working title.  I played around with the painting a little bit after it came home, but everything that she

touched is just as she left it..    
What a great day.  


Ideas for a title?  

Thanks for looking.