Should I buy a boat?
My heart’s desire is never a big boat, but it’s always beautiful, sleek and wooden. Something I can sail solo would be best.
Happiest when painting boats
If painting boats brings you half the joy it brings me, my work here is complete.
How I fell in love (with a boat)
The chances that I can convince my husband I need a sailboat are slim to nil. But I’m blessed to be able to go cruising anyway.
Steamboat Springs
Waiting to Play (Boat House)
What caught my eye on this warm summer day in the Adirondacks was the flickering water underneath the boat. It’s all potential—we could be scooting along the surface of Saranac Lake, or we could be fishing, or we could be swimming over the side. It’s a dream, so it’s our choice. But know that the water is warm, the day is warmer, and it’s a perfect symphony of greens and golds and blues on a lazy summer day. Painted plein air in a boathouse, of course.
This painting can jump any way. Put it in a traditional plein air frame and it will enhance any rustic or classic room. Or go contemporary with a narrow black frame and white liner. Or even try grey-on-grey driftwood. It’s a painting that will go anywhere with distinction.
Pretty little boat
In the last year, I’ve dragged home a tractor, a dog, a pickup truck and a boat. My poor husband doesn’t know what hit him. Not much to it, in terms of working parts. A year ago, Jane Chapin, Kellee Mayfield and I were gassing up our cars, getting ready to make a midnight run …
Why we love boats
People see boats as symbols of the human experience, which is why they’re so potent in art. Skylarking, 24X36, oil on canvas, by Carol L. Douglas. Available here. I recently got a floor-cleaning robot. I find myself talking to it, usually cooing as I do to the dog. But this week it’s been avoiding a …
Beautiful boats and how they stay that way
Invented by a Scottish shipwright, the marine railway operates almost unchanged two hundred years later. Packing oakum, by Carol L. Douglas This is the first year in a while that I won’t be painting through fit-out, the annual renovation of the Maine windjammer fleet. I leave for Scotland on Monday. By the time I return …
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Monday Morning Art School: drawing a boat
This exercise is like learning perspective. You’ll never draw this way in the real world, but practicing it will improve your harborside skills. Cadet, by Carol L. Douglas I tell my students that it’s best to paint a boat from the deck of another boat or a floating dock. If you can’t, then keep your …
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