Looking across the Harraseeket River to the harbor.
One of my
favorite places to paint is
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| Colored pencil sketch covered over with acrylics |
On another
day I set up my easel and painted with oils. This painting is in my Etsy shop. In this painting I wanted to include the top of
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| View of Casco Castle from Winslow Park |
Built in 1903,
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| Gilsland Farm Meadow |
The rain was predicted to start at 5:00 p.m. Figuring there was plenty of time to paint I headed over to Maine Audubon's Gilsland farm at 2:00 p.m. with my paint out buddies. Wandering through the meadows, I saw a clump of goldenrod that looked like a nice subject for a sketch. Before I had a chance to pull out my materials it started to rain. Heading back to the car we got quite wet. After waiting in the car for a while the rain turned to just showers so we decided to try again. I went back to my clump of goldenrod to do a quick sketch before the rain started again.
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| Sketch 5" x 7" watercolor and pen |
A few weeks ago we went to another meadow at Gilsland Farm to sketch. Rain was imminent but we finished sketching before it started.
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| Sketch 5" x 7" watercolor and pen |
Quite a while ago I was in yet another meadow at Gilsland Farm and the dominant weather element was the wind. This time I had the full set-up with easel and oil paint. The painting from that day is in my Etsy Shop.
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| "Windy Day" oil on canvas 8" x 10" |
The charm of painting on location is the unpredictable nature of the experience. Visit the Maine Audubon website to check out information about this beautiful place.
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| "Goldenrod by the Marsh" pastel 14"x14" |
Sometimes a particular
landscape grabs you and won't let go. This happened to me in
I was driving around the Pine Point area looking for some good marsh scenes to photograph. I spotted one and knew I had found what I wanted.
"Goldenrod by the Marsh" acrylic 9"x12"
This painting journey started
with an acrylic painting. It is on canvas and measures 9" x 12".
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| "Meandering Marsh" pastel 6.5" x 10" |
After the acrylic one was done I still wanted to explore the scene so I switched to pastels. This rendition got much more colorful. It is pastel on sanded paper. I put it in my Etsy shop
Then I decided to see what
would happen if I switched the format. The first two were rectangular so I went
for the square. The result is a 14" x 14" pastel. I enjoyed painting all three renditions. It is
fun to see what happens and how each time my impression changes.
I entered the 14"x14"
pastel into the 2021 For Pastels Only On Cape Cod show. I was
so excited to have my painting selected for the show and to receive two awards.
Dawn Emerson, in her juror
remarks, said the following about my painting:
I was impressed with what
Dawn Emerson said about the entire exhibit in her juror's statement. She
said that, "This exhibit reassures me that humanity will survive and
thrive as long as artists remind us of the beauty around us we are blessed with
each day".
Rocks, rocks, and more
rocks...
Painting # 1 is called,
"Delightful Day" and was inspired by an early morning visit to Kettle
Cove in
Just for the fun of it, I searched the internet to see if I could come up with any interesting tidbits about the rocks in the cove. I came across a blog post called, "Skipping Stones at Kettle Cove". The author wrote about how the rocks look like petrified wood but "are really ocean bottom rock split by stretched bands of quartz".
Very interesting!
Painting # 2 is called, "Playful Day" and was
inspired by the energetic rocks near the Lobster Shack at Two Lights in
The rocks in this area were
formed 420 million years ago. That period of time is known at the Silurian
Period.
Now for a bit of geology from maine.gov...
"The layers of sediment
that accumulated in that Silurian ocean are preserved in the rocks at Two
Lights as light gray, massive quartzite and dark gray phyllite layers. The
quartzite layers were originally sand or silt beds, and the phyllite layers
were originally clay or mud beds. As the layers accumulated one on the other,
some were deposited individually with sharp boundaries between them, and others
were deposited as mixed masses in graded beds that change gradually from the
bottom to the top of the layer."
Very interesting!
Painting #3 is called,
"Luminous Day" and was inspired by the late afternoon light on the
cliff walk at Prouts Neck in
