Category: Hudson Valley

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Traveling truths

Catskills over Athens, NY, 8X6, oil on canvasboard, Carol L. Douglas. The grass is courtesy of a park worker who was string-trimming nearby. Not to worry; it will pick off when the painting is dry.
When Nancy Woogen and I were painting at North –South Lake on Thursday, a woman glided past us in her kayak. “Oh, you’re painters!” she exclaimed. “May I join you?”
Turns out she has been looking for her tribe. I introduced her to my pal Jamie Williams Grossman, chair of Lower Hudson Valley Plein Air Painters. We arranged to meet the following day at Site #9 on the Hudson River Art Trail, also known as Promenade Hill Park in Hudson, NY.
A tug approaching the Athens-Hudson Lighthouse in the Hudson River.
Like many upstate New York towns, Hudson went into decline after its primary industry was closed down, but its industry wasn’t the usual paper or steel mill. For a century, Hudson was notoriousfor vice. Its red-light district included 50 bars, 15 whorehouses, two major illegal horse gambling rooms and a big-stakes floating crap game—all in a community of just a few thousand people. A series of high-profile raids in 1951 put an end to that. Hudson slumped into the familiar pattern of decay.
Power lines crossing the Hudson, 8X6, oil on canvasboard, Carol L. Douglas.
It’s been gentrified since my last visit, driven into the inexorable real-estate maw of New York City. This is great for the landowners of Columbia County, and not so good for those who need to buy or rent houses.
I talked to an artist who commutes to Manhattan and who is considering relocating to Troy, farther upriver. “Two hours on the train I can handle,” she said. “But two and a half is just too much.” Having done my time commuting from Rochester to Manhattan, I understand.
I painted a half-day at Promenade Hill, and decided to start the trek back to Rockport, ME, where my commute is, well, nothing at all.

Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me on the Schoodic Peninsula in beautiful Acadia National Park in August 2015. 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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Requiescat in pace

Playland Beach View, Seth Nadel (done at Rye Painters on Location)
Yesterday my pal Crista Pisano texted me that a mutual acquaintance died suddenly. He is Seth Nadel, a landscape painter from Highlands, New York. He died doing something he loved—playing tennis—but that doesn’t negate the fact that a fine painter and caring teacher has been taken from the Hudson Valley art scene.

Times Square, Seth Nadel
I did not know Seth well, but we had a passing acquaintence: we did the Rye Art Center’s Painters on Location together for years. Seth had a BFA from Cooper Union and studied at the Art Students League. He taught painting at the Barrett Art Center in Poughkeepsie.
While I’m celebrating Christmas this afternoon, I will be remembering not only my loved ones who have passed away this year, but my friends who have sustained similar losses.

Hudson Valley View, Seth Nadel (done for Rye Painters on Location)
The peace of God be with you today and always. Happy Christmas.

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!
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The scene of the crime

My errant palette knife has returned home, with a spiffy monogram.

After a beautiful drive across the state, I arrived at Palenville in mid-afternoon. Unpacked and rested, I wandered into Jamie Grossman’s kitchen, where she handed me the palette knife I’d dropped in her creek last summer. Not only did she return it to me, she returned it monogrammed.

A wee little sketch of rocks and a tree.
Patricia McDermond and I had 45 minutes to paint or draw before it was time to dress for dinner, so we wandered back to the creek with our watercolor sketch kits. I didn’t fall in this time, but I didn’t paint much that was brilliant, either. Three fast and weak watercolors in my notebook and I was done.
A wee little watercolor sketch of the same tree. One drawn and three watercolor sketches in less than an hour.
It usually takes me about three hours to do a 9X12 plein air painting. But that doesn’t include the driving time, the sketching time, or the falling-in-the-creek time.
Success is a glass of wine on your friend’s deck in the woods.
There are still a few openings in my 2014 workshop in Belfast, ME. Information is available here.
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Go see this show!

Those of you in the mid-Hudson region ought to run, not walk, to see Bruce Bundock’s show at the Rosendale Café, which opens this Sunday. He’s simply the best plein air draftsman around, but that distinction would be meaningless without his palpable empathy for the lives of regular folks.
He’s painted iconic buildings, but he tends to gravitate to the everyday: a commuter-train parking lot, a cement plant, a mobile home.  â€śThey’re actual living and working spaces,” he said of his preferred choice of subject. “The thing about buildings is that they’re so appealing to look at, and I like the idea of blending them with the landscape,” said Bundock.  
Renovation of the Kirkland Hotel, #2. Bundock has painted many studies of this project.
Bundock has repeatedly painted and drawn the renovation of the Kirkland Hotel, a Kingston landmark built in 1899; several views are included in this show.  â€śI kept going out there and working on site,” he said. What drives a painter into that kind of meticulous exploration? “You have to have curiosity,” he told me. “It is the spark that leads you into investigation, and takes you through a number of different avenues, skills, techniques, materials and subjects, to see your vision realized.
A more pastoral landscape.
Bundock is known for his work in acrylics, although he also paints in oils.  â€śI like the idea that I can restate passages in ten minutes or less with acrylics, and with additives I can get soft edges like I can with oils.”
As Museum Preparator of the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center of Vassar College, Bundock is conversant with the Hudson River artistic legacy, and he recognizes our debt to the artists of the past.  However, he thinks we need to look beyond them. “There is a difference between those who want to ape the past and those who want to find out where their own ideas break away from those they admire so much. You have to come up with something that brings you into your own identity.”
A few other of Bruce’s paintings you might enjoy:
SummerIn Ulster County  â€śI saw the light that hit that and it was a meditation on form and color and light—something aesthetically pleasing, and the idea of who lives there was sort of secondary. Light plays a big role in elevating the ordinaary. It’s like a still life—more of a close-up view than a grand panorama. It was an intriguing combination of shapes.”

River Road Looking North “It is the light that gives it that Greek Isles look.”

A Pool With a View “This is up in Wyndham. It is somebody’s house; I was intrigued by it, especially the red roof being a nice foil against the green. I left the Tyvek in because it rang truer. If I stripped that away, I’d have stripped away some of the character of the house, because the renovation was part of what I was curious about. That’s one hell of a view they got up there, to have that property at the top of that mountain, that’s fantastic.”

There are still spots open in our mid-coast Maine plein air workshops! Check here for more information.