Year: 2015

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Maine Photo Project

The Haven, Bertrand H. Wentworth, undated, Monhegan Museum
Most of us go to Maine and come back with hundreds—thousands—of photographs. Within a year of the invention of the daguerreotype in 1839 there were people taking pictures here, according to the Maine Historical Society.
Katahdin Canoe, Leland Whipple, before 1900, hand-tinted lantern slide, Bangor Public Library
The Maine Photo Project is a year-long series of exhibitions and public programs exploring this fascination. It’s interactive in the sense that we’re all invited to participate, using the hashtag #mephotoproject on Instagram. I’ll definitely be playing.
Untitled (East Machias Post Office), Berenice Abbott, undated, gelatin silver print, Farnsworth Art Museum
This statewide collaboration runs through 2015 and includes displays and contributions by museums, art galleries, historical societies, artists, collectors, and arts organizations across the state, with oversight by the Maine Historical Society.

Unidentified Group of Men, Albion Moody, c. 1880-1904, glass plate negative, Brick Store Museum

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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Beautiful, artistic Maine

Camden and Mt. Battie, by Carol L. Douglas
Tomorrow morning, I’m going to the Belfast Creative Coalition’s annual meeting. I’m going because I’m interested in a Land Trust proposal, but mostly to satisfy my curiosity.
Belfast is a city of 6,800 people, located in a county of about 38,000 people. Yet Belfast has enough art galleries to have a Fourth Friday gallery walk, and the Coalition could put together a Columbus Day Farm and Art tour with more than a hundred venues.
Visit Castine, population 1300, and you’ll be given this map of attractions.
Belfast is just one of many art cities on the Maine Coast. There are Rockport and Rockland, which is now home to the Center for Maine Contemporary Art and the Farnsworth. Camden, and Damariscotta are also chock full of galleries, teaching spaces, and studios.
The list of painters with feet in both Maine and New York is extensive and includes Winslow Homer, Edward Hopper, Childe Hassam, Rockwell Kent, George Bellows, Frederic Church, and Thomas Cole. For them—like me—the draw isn’t primarily the art community, but the land and sea themselves: the ceaseless rise and fall of the tide, the granite outcroppings, and the dark pines.
Damariscotta, by Carol L. Douglas
Later this week I’m heading up to Schoodic to scope out painting sites for next year’s workshop. The class is about half full now, so I recommend that if you’re interested, you get in touch with me soon.

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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The best-laid plans

Maine Ice Storm, Jamie Wyeth.
My pal Toby warned me that I was driving into an ice storm. It stretched from coastal New Jersey to western Massachusetts. But I’ve been driving for almost 40 years (legally) and I drive a lot. In fact, I’d estimate that I’m one of those “million mile” drivers without infractions or accidents. There is always a bolt hole somewhere along the way to stop, and I have emergency provisions in my car.
Ice on the Hudson, Childe Hassam, 1908
The first indication you’re in trouble is usually when your car picks itself up and floats across the road. Mercifully, there was no oncoming traffic on Route 20. When I arrived at my destination, my Prius floated down the hill with no intention of stopping. I opened my door and realized that I was on perfectly smooth skating ice, unfortunately without skates.
Morning mist in the mountains, Casper David Friedrich, 1808
This morning I’m crossing the Berkshires, and I’d rather let someone else test the ditches. So I’m dallying in Pittsford over a second cup of coffee.
Study for Ice Flow, Allagash, Neil Welliver, 1996
Hopefully, my vagabond summers are coming to an end. I’m meeting with a Realtor tomorrow morning in mid-coast Maine. From there, I’ll head up to Schoodic to do a little painting (weather permitting, of course). But first another cup of coffee and a hot shower before I hit the road.

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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Homer’s “Wine-Dark Sea”

Heavy Weather, done for now.

Occasionally, scholars get themselves tied up in knots over Homer’s “wine-dark sea.” The Aegean is just as blue as any other sea, and there are many theories about what Homer (or whoever actually wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey) was thinking: it was discolored by red marine algae, Homer was color-blind, the Greeks drank wine that was actually blue, or they didn’t have words to describe the deep blue-green of the sea.

There are times when the ocean just looks ominously dark, and that’s what I think he meant. The wine-dark sea is, to me, Prussian Blue dulled with Burnt Sienna—an unfathomable darkness.

Occasionally, optics can make the ocean look reddish. I took this photo off Sandy Hook, NJ.

It’s very easy to anthropomorphize sailboats. Still, I was startled to realize that Heavy Weather is an autobiographical painting. It is me skittering over the wine-dark sea.

“That should make it therapeutic to paint,” my friend B. said. I don’t really think so, but realizing it is autobiographical made it very easy for me to reach through the painting to correct its fundamental problem.
Heavy weather, increasing the seas.
My cousin Antony is a dedicated sailor. He got right to the issue when he said, “I would expect a lot more white water around if you only had a storm jib up.” Reference photos have a way of flattening hills, mountains, vistas—and raging seas. I needed to feel the water as a surging force, and then paint it as such. Once I realized what I was painting, that was a snap.
This is exploratory, and there are qualities that are very tentative. I have no problem painting water en plein air, but I need a little more assurance to get the same insouciance from reference photos, especially when I don’t have any particularly good ones.
Heavy weather, underpainting.
I’m going to revisit this same subject in a few weeks. But before that happens, I’m off to Maine to do some research for next summer. I’m planning to freeze off my ears so that when you come to Schoodic to paint next August, it will be a perfect trip!

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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The sad truth about obscenity


My pal Stu Chait and I did a show at RIT last year that ended with early closure because of my nude figures. I’ve long since moved on, but Rob Curry made a video of the opening and I just got a copy of it.

Despite its abrupt and ignominious end, it was a great show and I hope you enjoy the video.
I’m sorry that I live in a time and place where it’s possible for nudity to offend, especially with so much unschooled dreck passing for art in the academic world. 
Submission, 24X20, by Carol L. Douglas. This is one of the works in our closed-down show. Too bad it was silenced by censorship, because it is certainly ‘relevant’.
We live in oddly bifurcated times. We not only tolerate but glorify the cardinal sins: lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride. On the other hand, we are leery of serious conversations, we don’t like serious effort, and we insult, vilify and occasionally massacre those with whom we disagree. A god and a morality that’s big enough to command respect ought to be big enough to brush off criticism.

I may never have wanted to read Charlie Hebdo, but I sure as heck think artists ought to be able to say or think what they want without threat of censorship or worse.

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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Having some ‘work’ done

Most celebrities are chary about admitting they’re having plastic surgery. I’ve decided to bore you with all the details.
It’s called ptosis, and it can be fixed with crutches or surgery.
Years ago I decided that I’d never have plastic surgery. I didn’t want to take a chance that my daughters would one day have to admit, “My mom died having a boob job.” So the first time my ophthalmologist suggested that I needed my eyes ‘lifted’, I just laughed. My father’s eyes were hooded, my grandmother’s eyes were hooded; if they could live with them, so could I.
Until now I thought those heavy eyelids made a great sun visor. I guess not.
Nonetheless, I’ve been having increasing trouble seeing, and that’s not good for an artist. Although I have symptoms of cataracts, my ophthalmologist tells me that’s not the problem. Yesterday I took a field-of-vision test. It proved to me that my droopy eyelids really are causing less light to reach my eyes. (Hopefully, my insurance company will be equally convinced.) So very shortly I’m gonna let a man with a knife mess with my lovely face.
I never had a visible eyelid.
My grandmother, father, siblings, and three of my four children all have that epicanthal fold, which is a trait more commonly seen in Asians. It was no problem when I was eight, but at 55, the skin on my lids has fallen forward and is covering my pupil.
Why do some Northern Europeans have that Mongol eye? Some speculate that the layer of fat above the eye protects it from extreme cold–and that Renee Zellweger recently had the same eye surgery to disguise her ethnic eyes. (Maybe she was just having trouble seeing, too.)
It will take about a week to recover, during which time I plan to listen to books on tape. But in the meantime, I need to zip up to Maine to do some reconnoitering for next year’s workshop. 

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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Heavy weather

Heavy Weather, underpainting, by Carol L. Douglas
For this painting, I am trying to envision a sailboat being hit broadside by a large wave, with the question of whether it will capsize or right itself left unanswered.
My own sailing has been seriously curtailed for decades. That means that if I have questions about what a boat might do under sail, I have to consult an expert. My go-to guy is my cousin Antony. Not only does he get to sail in the southern Indian Ocean, but he’s in a totally different time zone, so hopefully he will answer my questions while I sleep.
The Gulf Stream, 1899, by Winslow Homer.
This morning I was looking for photos of boats in heavy weather. I came across the following, by a blogger who identifies himself only as Joe:
Sometimes the sea can be a very scary place.

A very, very scary place.

Before you undertake a voyage to adventure, make sure you are well trained, have some real sailing experience, and know how to survive if things go wrong. Believe me things can go wrong. Thank God I have my Navy training.

Fishermen at Sea, 1796, J.M.W. Turner
Don’t assume that the guy sitting in his flight suit on the ready alert is going to come and rescue you. You might be out of range.

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.

The Fog Warning, 1885 by Winslow Homer
That might be a great idea for my painting students, too.

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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The Linchpin

Girl falling into fountain while texting, 6X8, oil on canvas
Years ago I had a large brush-pile in my backyard, left over from clearing trees. I would have burned it where it sat, except it was too close to the woods for safety. As the greenwood decayed, it slumped into a solid, stinking mass. I pulled and yanked but got nowhere. After hours of clipping, cutting, shifting and swearing, I was about to quit, when something shifted and the whole thing just came apart.
Beak! Boss! 6X8, oil on canvas
Anyone who’s ever sewn knows that the last seam you put in when you’re overtired will be wrong. And I can’t count how many times I’ve done a computer project only to realize when I was almost finished that there was a faster, easier way to do it.
Art has a steep learning curve because we’re often doing things we’ve never done before. A lot of our time seems to bear no fruit. But stagnation and even falling backward are an important part of the process.
Baby Monkey Riding on a Pig #2 (Abi’s Opossum),  6X8, oil on canvas
Every morning I spend about ten seconds posting my blog pictures on Pinterest. I get the occasional note that something has been repinned, but in general it doesn’t feel like anyone is paying that much attention. Yet I recently got a note that I had more than 26K Pinterest hits in 2014.

Esther is the one of the two Bible books that has no star turn for God. It seems to be a series of human interactions, the majority of which go pretty badly for Esther and her people.  But a seemingly insignificant thing happens—Ahasuerus can’t sleep. The story his courtier uses to put him to sleep turns out to be the pin which releases the salvation of the Jewish people. The events are all worldly, but the net result is miraculous.
Baby Monkey Riding on a Pig #1 (with gumdrops), 6X8, oil on canvas
All of which is to say that our human perception of progress is exceedingly narrow. So keep plugging. You never know when you’ll pull the linchpin.
Pull Up Your Big Girl Panties, 6X8, oil on canvas
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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Hand over fist

Unfinished, by Carol L Douglas, 16X20, oil on canvas. (The color is distorted because it was dark when I shot this.)
Over the past three years, I have become enamored of the luminist paintings of Fitz Henry Lane. That doesn’t mean I want to paint like him, but I love the space and light in his paintings. I started this boat painting with him in mind, but I did not look at his work. I wanted his technique to suffuse my understanding, rather than push me toward painting like him.
If I’m unsure about the composition, I compare it to this grid I learned in a workshop taught by Steven Assael. 
Sailboats are elegant, and they glide like living creature across the sea. I generally paint them at dock because it is extremely difficult to paint them en plein airin motion, (although I did give it a try at Rye in 2013).
My underpainting. The sky is a complete fabrication. I need to recapture some of the bluntness of this when I finish the painting.
 Last summer, Howard Gallagher of Camden Falls Gallery took Lee Boyntonand me out to see the start of the Eggemoggin Reach Regatta . (It’s a great gallery owner who cares that much for his painters.) It made me passionately want to paint boats in motion.
My reference photo, taken at the start of the Eggemoggin Reach Regatta.
On Monday, I wrote about consistencyand how your style is ultimately your brand. A reader asked how one can experiment, grow and change while still being consistent. Artists know that the creative process never ends; you wrestle through one technical problem only to be faced by another.
Ironically, that was the precise problem I found myself facing. I went back to first principles. I drew and drew the boat until I was confident about its proportions. Since I was unsure of how to divide the space, I used a grid taught by Steven Assael.
Boston Harbor was painted by Fitz Henry Lane around 1850. 
The end result taps into Lane’s luminism, but is by no means a slavish copy. It is both consistent with my work and yet it explores new material. It’s not finished, but it is a good start.

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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An interstate runs through it

Delaware Water Gap, by Carol L. Douglas. This is almost the only paintable vista left since US 80 was built.
Rumor has it that I’m going to New Jersey on Friday. I love New Jersey, but I’ve seen an awful lot of it this month. All this travel is cutting into my painting time. However, I will drive through the Delaware Water Gap, which is a favorite place and always a great mystery to me.
US 80 owns the Delaware Water Gap now.
A water gap is an Appalachian phenomenon, where a river is so old that it predates the lifting and folding of the landscape, and therefore it cuts across a mountain range. Water being so malleable and rock being so hard, it’s difficult to see how this happens, but the evidence is there on those folded, rocky scarps. Water gaps are particularly common in the eastern part of Pennsylvania.
The Delaware Water Gap, 1861, George Inness
US Interstate 80 runs through the Delaware Water Gap now, making it difficult to find a good painting vantage point. I’ve painted several times from along the river’s edge itself. That doesn’t give you the panorama that you would have if you stood right on the pavement (which would make for a very short painting career). There is an overlook on the New Jersey side that might make for a good long-distance painting, but I’ve never hit the right combination of lighting and sufficient time. It isn’t going to happen in the chilling weather we have this week.
On the Delaware River, 1861-1863, George Inness
George Inness is particularly associated with the Delaware Water Gap. His paintings are a bucolic reminder of a time when tractor trailers didn’t own this particular American treasure.
The Delaware Water Gap, 1857, George Inness
Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Maine in 2014 or Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!