Year: 2015

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What drew them to Maine?

It’s all about the light…
In the mid-19th century working in natural settings and capturing natural light became particularly important to painters. The popularity of plein air painting increased with the introduction of pre-mixed paints in tubes and the rapid development of new, color-fast pigments.
And the granite outcroppings…
This movement arose more or less simultaneously around the world, including the Barbizon and Impressionist schools in France, the Newlyn painters in England, the Group of Seven painters in Canada, the Heidelberg School in Australia, and the Hudson River School in New York.
And the untouched wilderness…
A national awareness of Maine’s striking landscape was raised in large part by the Hudson River School artists. Thomas Cole, Frederic Church and Thomas Doughty were among the first nationally-known painters to capture Maine’s natural beauty.
At the time, New York was the unrivaled center of art in America, and the Hudson River painters were celebrities. Their paintings were travelogues for a nation hungry to learn about the vast, untamed wildernesses in their own country. It is no coincidence that they painted concurrently with our westward expansion and the first movements toward a national park system.
And the ocean breezes…
They established a tradition of urban artists finding inspiration in Maine. Born in Boston, trained and established in New York, Winslow Homer reached his artistic maturity in Maine. Many other painters have followed his lead, including George Bellows, Rockwell Kent, Edward Hopper, and Rackstraw Downes.
And the power and motion of the sea.

What impulse drove them to Maine? In part it was a desire to escape market-driven and competitive New York. It was also a response to the clear bright light, the bracing breezes, the constant motion of the sea, the sighing winds and the bending pines.
A storm sky forming over Mt. Desert Narrows.
Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me on the Schoodic Peninsula in beautiful Acadia National Park in 2015 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops! Download a brochure here.
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Elvers and Pickled Wrinkles

Lobster traps in Corea, ME. This little burg will be on our agenda. It’s very much a working fishery town.
North of Ellsworth, ME, the Atlantic coast veers away into a different world. Gone are the clamshacks, the art galleries, and the coffeeshops geared toward visitors from away. We’re now in working Maine.
Stunning rock outcroppings.
I passed a sign reading, “Elvers bought here.”  It turns out that an elver is not a juvenile elf but a juvenile eel. If I had a pickup truck full of them, I’d be a wealthy woman, even though the price has dropped from its 2012 high of $2600/lb. to a more rational $400-600/lb. Although I’ve never heard of the things, in 2012 the statewide harvest was valued at more than $38 million, making it the second-most lucrative catch in Maine’s fisheries industry.
Our home-away-from-home.
I couldn’t take photos of the insides of our accommodations—the water and power is off, and there’s antifreeze in the toilets. But they’re four-bedroom duplexes, originally designed as Navy barracks. There are kitchens and sufficient bathrooms, but there will be no 600-thread-count sheets at this workshop. For those of you who have visited Ghost Ranch at Abiquiu, NM, this is very much the northeastern equivalent. It’s all about the sky and the landscape.
Last summer, Schoodic Institute hosted a stone sculpture symposium. This is carved granite, in front of Morse Auditorium at the Institute.
Because we’re back of beyond, our workshop includes all meals. However, there is a good pub in Winter Harbor—the Pickled Wrinkle—that you should visit on your way home.
The Dining Hall is stripped for winter, but there’s a wonderful view.
Acadia seems to be everyone’s darling recently. See Good Morning America’s video, here, and USA Today’s reporting, here.  In anticipation of increased visitation, the Park Service is busy upgrading the fabric of the place, including newly-paved roads. In a few years, you’ll be able to look down your nose and tell people, “I was there before it was cool.”
Very much working Maine.
(One of my students asked me whether there’s a ferry from Schoodic to Bar Harbor. There is; it leaves from Winter Harbor.)

Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me on the Schoodic Peninsula in beautiful Acadia National Park in 2015 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops! Download a brochure here.
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A winter morning at Schoodic

Electronics just get smaller and smaller. What once took a whole naval base now operates out of this lighthouse at Winter Harbor, ME.
The Schoodic Institute is a relatively new addition to Acadia National Park. The property was operated as a secure United States Navy base from 1935 to 2002. (I’d tell you that they did cryptology, but then I’d have to kill you.) This replaced an earlier site, Otter Cliffs, which was on Mt. Desert Island from 1917 until 1933.
Little Moose Island catching the evening light.
Otter Cliffs was considered the Navy’s best transatlantic radio receiver site due to its isolation and the unobstructed ocean in front of it. Much of the Navy’s early receiver, antenna and noise mitigation technology was developed here under the leadership of radio pioneer Greenleaf Whittier Pickard.  But John D. Rockefeller wanted Otter Cliffs included in Acadia National Park. He convinced the Navy to swap locations. This is why the base at Schoodic had such an over-the-top main building—Rockefeller never did anything by halves.
In addition to fantastic shoreline, there are boreal bogs, too. This one won’t look like this in the summer, but I couldn’t resist the faerie lighting of the mist-shrouded branches.
We will be visiting at a unique point in Schoodic’s development. It’s still an unknown entity for most people, and the accommodations are best described as “military base chic.” But the Park Service is slowly rebuilding the facility. An area around the park—encompassing a third more property than the park itself—has been acquired for development as a resort. (This development would already be underway had it not been delayed by the Great Recession of 2008.)
Rolling Island seen through a shroud of trees.

Arey Cove at low tide. It looks very different with the tide up.

But for now, we will get to paint some of the best landscapes on the North Atlantic in relative solitude. This week I will post a pictorial essay on what we will be seeing. I hope you enjoy it.
Rockefeller never did anything by halves. This is the administration building for the former naval base.

Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me on the Schoodic Peninsula in beautiful Acadia National Park in 2015 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops! Download a brochure here.

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Heading north in slow stages

Frozen paints…
…lead to a frozen sketch.
A week ago today, I drove up the Maine coast in slow stages. Maine is beautiful in winter, but it’s not the same kind of beauty as in August. Mid-coast Maine and Rochester have about the same winter temperatures. (As here, it gets colder the farther away from open water you go.) But there’s far more winter sun in Maine, and it creates the illusion of warmth.
Belfast tugs, last summer. That’s my student Brad Van Auken’s painting start.
I stopped in Belfast, ME for groceries, a gallery call, and a few moments of sketching at the harbor. Belfast often has tugs under repair in its boatyard, and it is a pretty place even in January. I pulled out my watercolor sketch kit and started a fast sketch of the pretty red boathouse. When my paints froze in the pan, it was a sign that I should move on.
North of Ellsworth, US 1 becomes a much quieter, more contemplative road.
After Ellsworth, ME (the turn-off to Bar Harbor), US 1 becomes a much quieter road, especially in winter. My goal was to arrive in Winter Harbor by dusk.  After a quick trip out to Schoodic Point to catch the winter sun setting over the ocean, I settled in for the night.
Sun setting over Schoodic Point.
Not wanting to head into Winter Harbor for a pub meal, I was forced to cook myself dinner. I reminded myself that wine goes with everything, and soldiered on.
Wine goes with everything.
Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me on the Schoodic Peninsula in beautiful Acadia National Park in 2015 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops! Download a brochurehere.
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Power of art

The symmetry of Thomas Hart Benton’s mural at the Power Vista balances the Iroquois and Europeans, who are also evenly matched in stature, equipment and clothing.
When I was a child, we used to take field trips to the Niagara Power Vista. This is a glorified observation deck over the Niagara River. (Back in the day, we actually saw one of these behemoth turbines at rest in the bottom of its deep chute, which was a terrifying experience to a child with imagination.)
Among the attractions was a mural by Thomas Hart Benton. While other Benton murals are being transferred to major museums, this one sat for years in direct sunlight, fading. In honor of the Power Vista’s 50th anniversary, it’s been restored.
Father Louis Hennepin discovering Saint Anthony Falls, Douglas Volk (1905). The difference between Benton’s and Volk’s characterization of the Native people is striking.
Thomas Hart Benton established his reputation in the 1930s with five murals that championed a new American art movement known as Regionalism. His was the most well-known voice of the Work Projects Administration (WPA) mural program. He was the first artist ever featured on the cover of Time magazine (in 1934).
The History of Water, Thomas Hart Benton, 1930. This was executed for a drugstore in Washington DC in 1930, but was removed shortly thereafter and stored in the basement. It was rediscovered in 1985. After being verified as a long-missing work by Benton, it was put up for auction at Sotheby’s and is currently with Vivian Kiechel Fine Art in Lincoln, Nebraska.
His Power Vista mural depicts the Belgian missionary Fr. Louis Hennepin blessing Niagara Falls in the winter of 1677. Those who know and love the Falls recognize the topography, as stylized as it is. What I most admire is the respect Benton showed to Hennepin’s Iroquois guides. The Iroquois were far from savages. Not significantly behind the Europeans of the time, they quickly adopted what technology they didn’t have. They were mercantile and warlike, and Benson paints them and their European counterparts as equals.


Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Maine in 2015 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops! Download a brochure here.
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Weather notes

When I arrived in Waldoboro, it was hovering around a high of 27° with a low in the single digits, and no snow.
A few weeks ago I quoted a sailing instructor:
For God’s sake, learn how to read the weather!

For home work, I made my sailing students keep a notebook chronicling the daily weather. It had to have the forecast from the newspaper with their own observations.
At the time, I said that would be a great idea for my plein air painting students, too. Rather than assign work I haven’t tried myself, I packed a small watercolor sketchbook, ruled off into six squares per page, and my trusty old Winsor & Newton pocket paint kit.
That was the pattern until the end of the week, when the temperatures moved up and the sky started building.
In Rochester my studio faces to the north and east, away from the weather front, and the southwest sides of our house—which is where the action is, weatherwise—have more limited visibility. After this week of balancing in precarious positions, I feel like I might just go out on the stoop and sit. It takes fifteen minutes for the paints to really freeze.
I was in Winter Harbor, left, when snow moved in.
What have I learned so far? It’s generally sunnier here in winter than it is in Rochester. The winter light is lemony and the shadows are purple, whereas in Rochester, the winter light tends toward peach and the shadows toward blue (perhaps because it’s never truly bright). And a blizzard is a blizzard is a blizzard, no matter where it’s blowing.
I hope to shovel out and hit the road to Pittsford today, but the plows remain obstinately quiet. Still, they needn’t come by until I’m ready to roll. Just in time is fine.
The day before the blizzard, left, was a perfectly clear Maine day.

Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Maine in 2015 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops! Download a brochure here.
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Blizzard

Whose woods these are I think I know.  
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here  
To watch his woods fill up with snow. 
I knew weather was coming, but I had no choice but to stay; yesterday I had appointments all day in mid-coast Maine. When I finished at dusk, there was little choice but to hunker down and ride it out.
I think of blizzards as time-out-of-time: they’re an extra Sunday in the week, unannounced holidays. Trouble is, I don’t want a holiday; I want to get home and continue on the groove I’ve made for myself.
I’m an old hand at blizzards, but this is my first experience with one off-the-grid. Like many Maine houses, this one has knee walls on the second floor. My little bed is tucked up under the rafters. We’re heating with wood, which makes my bed the warmest place in the house. My window is single-pane, and it’s allowing gouts of cold air to blow in. But it’s not on the west wall, and the wind is from the west. As I write this, it is increasing in ferocity. There are wind chimes somewhere outside , and their frantic atonal melodies rise in counterpoint to the clunk of the tie-downs on the wood pile and the whistle of the wind.
Thank you to my daughter for the texting gloves. They’re making this bearable. Later I’ll see if they work as watercoloring gloves.
Mainers are accustomed to bad weather and they seem inclined to keep deep pantries. There was none of that rush for bread, milk and eggs at the local Hannaford when I stopped. However, there was a line of trucks waiting for gas; seems like everyone has a generator here.
Since I took this photo, the far tree line has vanished in the snow.
My family has blown all over the map in this storm—some in Rochester, one in Washington, DC, some in Albany. The governor of New York has suggested that everyone stay home; one wag responded, “He’s probably not self-employed, then.” (Mr. Cuomo is left-footed on the subject of snow, which is no surprise seeing as he hails from Queens. But his advice is usually greeted with derision up in the Snow Belt.)
Blowing, drifting snow…
Six inches of snow in Rochester overnight so it’s business as usual. Doesn’t matter, though; the Mass Pike is closed, and the New York State Thruway is kinda-sorta closed. I’m stuck here for the duration.
The wood pile.
We have water, we have firewood, we have food. There’s no chance of the power being knocked out, because there isn’t power anyway. So my Prius slumbers by the side of a dirt road that won’t be plowed for hours if at all. I think I will curl up and spend the day reading.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,  
But I have promises to keep,  
And miles to go before I sleep,  
And miles to go before I sleep.
(from Robert Frost’s Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening)

Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Maine in 2015 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops! Download a brochure here.

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Oldies but Goodies

Adjust the pigments for 21st century tastes and this is a perfect explanation of how paired primaries are actually more versatile than having every pigment on your palette. I’d substitute quinacridone violet for alizarin crimson, and Hansa yellow for zinc yellow.
This weekend, I was on the Schoodic Peninsula to test painting sites for my August workshop. When I got back to Waldoboro, a friend showed me two books she bought at the Damariscotta Public Library used book sale. They are Grumbacher art guides: one for drawing, and one for mixing paint. Each was worth the 25¢ she paid, but the color mixing guide is particularly good.
Best fun I’ve had for a quarter in forever.
In 1966, thalo green and alizarin crimson were the pigments de jour, but today we aren’t keen on either of them. A good art teacher would cross them out and replace them with their 21st century analogs: quinacridone violet for the crimson, and nothing for the thalo green (which has to be the pigment I hate most in this world). But why bother? Another two generations, and archivists will be sneering at the pigments we’re using today.
Ignore the names of the pigments on this chart, and notice instead that violet is the darkest pure pigment, and yellow the lightest.

The principles are what matter. Look at the illustration of primary pairings. It shows an essential rule of painting—there are no pure pigments, so you need a warm and cool version of each primary color to get the greatest gamut (or range of colors). In fact, if you set up your palette with paired primaries, you can dispense with the secondaries altogether. There is no real need for orange, purple or green when you have primaries that can mix to them. (I do keep cadmium orange on my palette and dispense with cadmium red, but that’s an idiosyncrasy that I’ve arrived at after years of painting. Consider it the exception that proves the rule.)

The second half of the book includes mixing examples from their suggested palettes. Ignore the specifics and notice how many neutrals they make with high-chroma pigments. Now go repeat this on your own.
P.S. Dressing in the dark undoes the artist’s advantage in matching his or her clothing. I have no idea if my long johns go with my turtleneck this morning.
Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Maine in 2015 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops! Download a brochurehere.
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Heading East Northeast

Winter on the Schoodic Peninsula.
Having finished my work in Waldoboro for the moment (whew!) I’m heading for Acadia today—right into a winter storm. This is the kind of vagary my southern friends have no experience with, but which we northerners anticipate. My car is not brilliant at bad roads, but I’m carrying a shovel, blankets, Clif bars, a candle and matches, and I can wait out any disasters.
The part of Acadia I’m heading to is that northernmost corner near Winter Harbor.
Acadia is the oldest national park east of the Mississippi, founded in 1919. The Schoodic Peninsula Historic District near Winter Harbor dates from 1929. Specifically I’m headed to this area, the northernmost part of the park.
In 2002, the National Park Service acquired the former naval base located on the Schoodic Peninsula and renovated it into the Schoodic Education and Research Center. This is where our 2015 workshop will be based.
Schoodic Peninsula surf.
My kit is in the back of my car, but the likelihood of painting in the teeth of a blizzard is slim. Still, I do have a watercolor set and if the visibility is not completely whited out, I expect I can do a study or two. If nothing else, I can check out the accommodations for my students.


Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Maine in 2015 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops! Download a brochure here.
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Those crazy circadian rhythms

Night falls much earlier in the winter.
Once again I’m living off the grid in mid-coast Maine, and once again my friend is laughing at my peculiar habits. As P. points out, my eyelids start to droop exactly three hours after the sun sets, and I’m awake with the gloaming. This is apparently our pre-industrial pattern, and she delights in me validating it.
The sun knocks me out of bed in the morning, just as it seems to send me to bed early in the evening.
I like being up with the sun and down with the sun, which today in Maine means sunrise at 7:06 AM and sunset at 4:34 PM. That might seem like a short day, but if you are outside for a good part of the day (which I am) you are exhausted from the cold.
In my normal life, I’m a shallow sleeper who rises several times a night. Without electric lights, I seem to fall into a stupefied slumber and not wake until the sun comes up. It’s wonderfully restful. Having spent several weeks living like this—at all different times of the year—I can say that it is unique to this place.
Off the grid doesn’t mean out of this world. Handwarmers, texting gloves, a spare battery-pack, and an electric toothbrush are wonderful accoutrements for a cabin in the woods. 
This doesn’t mean I want to adopt off-grid living, but it does give credence to the theory that our electronic tethers have the potential to make us irritable and anxious. Who knows what the combined thrum of a thousand little fans does to our ability to be calm?
Sunrise streaming in my window, which faces east.
Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Maine in 2015 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops! Download a brochure here.