workshop Archives | Page 3 of 23

August 7, 2018

Schoodic, full of surprises

Like the porpoises gamboling in Frenchman Bay, we had fish for dinner. Ours was a curry.

Norris Island from Frazer Point, by Diane Leifheit

In Maine, you can see a long way. The building across the channel at Frazer Point is clear enough to count the windows, but it’s 750 feet away. The little channel to the west, which appears to be inconsequential, is more than 600 feet across. Mark Island, where the Winter Harbor light sits, is more than 3000 feet across the Mount Desert Narrows of Frenchman’s Bay. The little islands that play peek-a-boo as you drive the ring road may be nearly a mile offshore.

All this plays havoc with your sense of perspective. You know intellectually that buildings must have it, but you don’t actually see it. As I wrote last week about boats, the farther away an object is, the more horizontal our gaze is as we look at it. Our measly 5 or 6 feet in height is nothing compared to the great distances involved.

This photo of the Winter Harbor Lighthouse shows how, at long distances, the rules of two-point perspective become irrelevant. Courtesy lighthousefriends.com

Just as a far boat’s waterline is completely flat, so too is a building’s roofline. It may be thirty feet above the foundation, but when the building is 3000 feet away, that’s effectively nothing. Everything is effectively at eye level at that distance. That makes the vanishing rays of two-point perspective meaningless.

I’m at Schoodic Institute teaching my annual Sea & Sky workshopand that’s lesson number one for this morning. Lesson two is going to be to stop bustling around and appreciate the deep coolness of the spruces and the ocean breeze. “What a treat to be there,” my friend Barbara told me yesterday. She’s suffering in a heat wave in upstate New York. I’m sorry about that, friend.

Just because it didn’t work is no reason to stop trying.

My last student, Diane Leifheit, arrived just as I was doing a demo in pastel. She had driven across the former Province of Lower Canadafrom Morristown Plein Air. That’s too much driving for overnight, so she stopped at the Herbert Grand Hotel in Kingfield, ME, population 970. I can’t think of a single reason to go to Kingfield, but I might do so just to see this odd, old, antique gem. The lights went out twice during Diane’s stay. I might pay extra for that.

Diane ate a sandwich, set up her easel, and knocked off a lovely little pastel that perfectly captured the mood of the place. We were at Parrsborotogether earlier this summer and will be doing Adirondack Plein Airtogether next week, but she always seems much perkier than me.

They aren’t Derwent pencils, but I think they’ll work just fine.

Still under the influence of Yupo vellum, I’ve been encouraging Becky Benseto take a walk on the wild side. Her answer was to use seaweed and snail shells as brushes. There were a few live snails in her bucket. They objected to the color and crawled off. The goal is not as frivolous as it seems; it’s to get the same controlled energy in her field painting as in her amazing studio paintings.

I sometimes use Derwent watercolor pencils for drawing under oils, a technique I cribbed from my old friend Kristin Zimmermann. Linda Delorey bought Tombow watercolor brush pens instead. After my first surprise I read the label and realized they will work just fine.

The tide came in. Off in the distance, porpoises were cutting their unique arcs toward Winter Harbor and their dinner. It was time for us to go, too, but our haddock was curried, and delicious.

June 19, 2018

Not the Kardashians, but working on it

Parrsboro, NS, is working its way into being a regional arts center.

Breaking Dawn, by Carol L. Douglas. Second runner up at Parrsboro International Plein Air Festival.

This weekend there were lots of well-known faces at the Parrsboro International Plein Air Festival. Organizers snagged Richard Sneary to judge, and there were high-profile painters in the mix. It was a festival of luminaries, and the painting was first-rate. I’m hoping that translates into Parrsboro becoming an arts destination for tourists and city-slickers.

It’s not an impossible dream. Five miles down the road from my home is Rockland, ME. It started as a shipbuilding and fishing town, expanding to include canneries, grain mills, foundries, lumber mills, cooperies, tanneries, quarries, and other miscellany of coastal living. By the mid-twentieth century, its historic industries were moribund.

The Age of Sail workshop aboard American Eagle was scheduled to coincide with a gam, a rafting up of the historic vessels on Penobscot Bay.

Enter the Farnsworth Art Museum, established by Lucy Farnsworth in 1948. It’s now the nucleus of a gallery scene that now rivals any art scene anywhere, both in volume and in quality. Roughly 36.7 million tourists visited Maine in 2017, and we’re on track to break 40 million this year or next. Art is a big part of that tourism, and an important part of Maine’s image. I wish that for Parrsboro. If anyone can do it, the folks at Parrsboro Creative can. They’re smart, focused people.

One of the nicest things about traveling is meeting new people who tell me, “I read your blog.” This weekend, many added that they subscribe to two art things, my blog and Poppy Balser’s newsletter. We’re both daughters of the Great White North and we both love boats. Poppy is a terrifically nice person, so I don’t mind at all being lumped in with her.

Hard at work about American Eagle, photo courtesy Ellen Trayer.

My blog is an example of that old maxim about genius being 99% perspiration. It works because I get up early every morning to write it, Monday to Friday. Other than holidays, the only time I don’t write is when I’m out of network range, which was the case during last week’s Age of Sailworkshop.

It’s such a pity that I couldn’t share it with you because it was downright magical. American Eagle should really be called the Kindness, because the crew is so good-hearted. Any doubts as to whether a painting workshop on a boat could work were laid to rest. All participants enthusiastically said they’d do it again next year.

Ellen demonstrates a paint-throwing technique to Lynn. We waited until we were off the boat before we did this.

Michael Fuller isn’t a plein air artist but he gamely tried the Quick Draw at Parrsboro anyway. “It makes you notice the transient things,” he told me. I think that’s what the boat workshop did as well. In a sketchbook done on the move, one takes away impressions, not finished pieces. The discipline will make you put away your cell phone and change how you work.

The discipline of getting up early is equally hard to break. I found myself restively trying to ‘sleep in’ on Saturday, so at 4:30 AM (Atlantic time) I quietly dressed and headed from my host billet near Fox River to the beach below Ottawa House. I stopped for coffee and a bagel at Tim Hortons and figured I was too late for the sunrise. I was wrong; the subtle pyrotechnics went on for some time.

This piece was the second runner-up, or third prize winner. I figured Richard Sneary gave it to me as a reward for being the only person nuts enough to get up that early.

Neither Parrsboro Creative nor American Eagle have set their calendar for next year, but I have every intention of doing both again. It was a wonderful week. I’m just sorry that you couldn’t be there with me.

June 5, 2018

The car cures itself

Summer for a professional plein air painter can involve as much driving as painting.

Cape Blomiden makes its own cloud, by Carol L. Douglas, was painted during a rainstorm in the first annual Parrsboro International Plein Air Festival.

One of my students missed last weekend’s workshop due to a painful flareup of plantar fasciitis. Another student, himself a doctor, told me about taking the disease into his own hands. He simply stretched the offending tissue until it audibly tore. “The relief was instantaneous,” he told me as I stared at him aghast.

My little Prius has done something similar. It has, over the last year, developed a loud scream at high speeds. Turning up the radio was useless. I had the tires rotated to see if that helped. No luck. A front wheel bearing was replaced in March; I replaced its mate two weeks ago. The right rear brake locked up while my car was in Logan Airport long-term parking in April. That wasn’t the root of the noise either. Meanwhile, every month I’ve been spending more money on this car than the payment on a Ford F-150.

I appreciate AAA’s tow service, but I’ve seen too much of it recently.

But even the money hasn’t been the real problem. “It’s no longer reliable,” I lamented to my husband. Next week I drive alone to Parrsboro, NS, where I’m painting in the second annual Parrsboro International Plein Air Festival. There are some lonely stretches up that way, and I don’t like the idea of getting stranded. I’ve started car shopping, but I don’t have the time to do proper research.

Meanwhile, I’ve had a busy spring. On the night of my daughter’s wedding rehearsal, I stopped for a light at a busy intersection. I woke up seconds later to find that I’d rolled right into the line of oncoming cars.

I have more than a million miles of accident-free driving under my belt and I’d like to keep it that way. Yesterday when I found myself blinking away sleep on the New York State Thruway, I did something I never do: I relinquished the wheel to my co-pilot. Thus, it was he, not me, who was driving when a tire burst on the interstate.

Two Islands in the Rain, Carol L. Douglas, also from Parrsboro International Plein Air Festival

In the end, this turned out to be the Prius healing itself. A few hours later, we were back on the road. The sound that’s been plaguing me for months was gone. It was a defective tire after all.

We rolled into Rockport around the time that the fishermen are up rubbing the sleep from their eyes and checking the weather. The thermostat in my car read 43° F. and it was foggy and pouring.

I have a short tight week here in Maine. I leave to teach watercolor on the schooner American Eagle on Sunday evening. After we dock, I leave directly for Parrsboro, NS.

Teaching watercolor aboard American Eagle mercifully involves no driving. The dock is just minutes from my home.

I’ll be missing the opening reception for the latter, but Poppy Balser kindly stopped by on her way to Paint Annapolisto collect my boards for me. She’ll get them stamped so I don’t have to spend half of my first day there trying to find someone to stamp them for me. I’ll just have to find Poppy.

And the eco-warrior is back on the road, all healed.

This is nothing unusual; it’s the life of many of my friends each summer. We sort events into boxes. Sometimes we can stop at home, swap the boxes, and do our laundry. But often we stack our calendars up in the back of our vehicles: frames and supports for the different events share trunk space. If we’re crossing the border, we take a deep breath as we approach Customs. We’re not breaking the law, but a search of our cars will result in an awful mishmash of our supplies.

March 1, 2018

Which way to Millinocket?

People ask me fascinating questions about painting in Maine, or about coming to America’s vacationland.

Heritage and American Eagle on Penobscot Bay. Just another day in Paradise.

Yesterday someone asked me, “Can I take the schooner trip without painting?” The answer is: of course! I chose American Eagle for my Age of Sail workshop because it’s a fantastic boat with a great crew. Captain John Foss and his crew cruise all summer. Just call them at 1-800-648-4544 and tell them you want to go sailing without that art teacher yammering at you. (And if you’re a qualified deckhand, they’re looking for two of them as well. Email them here.)

We always welcome non-painting fellow travelers at our workshops. They’re set in fabled beauty spots, and of interest to hikers, sailors and bird-watchers. Maine should be shared, when possible.

Watercolor sketch by Carol L. Douglas

“I get seasick. Is there a cure for that?”

Seasickness is a form of motion sickness. It generally goes away after a few days, presumably when your brain stops noticing the motion. There are ways to avoid it, including spending more time on deck. However, if you suffer from serious mal de mer, the best answer is to stay on dry land. Luckily, I have another workshop, Sea & Sky, that covers the same territory, just on terra firma.

That’s scenic Schoodic Peninsula, site of our annual Sea & Sky workshop. No prettier place in the world.

“Which way to Millinocket?”

Nobody ever really asks me that question, which was made famous by Bert & I. (The answer is, “You can’t get they-ah from heah.”) The question I’m asked is how to get to Schoodic Institute for Sea & Sky, or Rockland for Age of Sail.

The big news in these parts is that Amtrak is talking about reviving the coastal Maine train, with stops in Bath, Wiscasset, Damariscotta and Rockland. Even without that it is possible to take the bus from New York or Boston to Rockland.

People generally drive, though, since US 1 is one of the great scenic highways in America. It still has that old-fashioned “roadside attraction” vibe of Mom-and-Pop motels, diners, antique shops and putt-putt golf that’s been lost in most of America. Acadia is 4.5 hours north of Boston and Rockland is a little more than three hours north. If you’re coming a greater distance, you can fly into Portland, Bangor or Manchester, NH and rent a car.

Surf, by Carol L. Douglas.

“What do I need to bring?”

For the Age of Sail, you need nothing except your personal belongings and clothes. We supply all the materials for this water-medium class. For Sea & Sky, here are supply lists for watercolor, acrylicsand oils. But don’t spend a fortune buying new stuff if you already have a workable plein air kit. Contact me first and we’ll discuss what you need.

Why take one of these workshops?

You want to spend time painting in America’s top beauty spot.
You want help with design and composition.
You understand the idea of “simplify” but don’t know how to put it in practice.
You want to be a better painter without becoming someone else’s mini-me.
You’d like help identifying your own strengths and weaknesses.
You want a simple system to master value.
You want to learn more about color.
You’re an experienced painter but want to learn more about plein air.
You’re a beginner who wants to learn to paint in a logical method.

How to enroll:

For the Age of Sail, a registration form is here. You can email or call American Eagle’s at 1-800-648-4544. There’s a $25 discount to members of New York Plein Air Painters, Plein Air Painters of Maine or any returning students.

For Sea & Sky, the registration form is here. You can email or call me at 585-201-1558. There’s a $50 discount to members of New York Plein Air Painters, Plein Air Painters of Maine or returning students.

February 19, 2018

Monday Morning Art School: draw six different boats

Drawing six similar objects will teach you to observe details.

Reliant rigged as a sloop.

I once got a commission to paint Lazy Jack II in Camden Harbor. I was pretty happy with the results. As I finished, two deckhands from another boat stopped to look at it. Their eyes met. “You’ve got the…” one started. “It’s not important,” said the other, and they quickly walked away. I’ve never figured out what’s wrong in that painting, but I did realize that you can only fudge the details so far. The experts will find you out.

In the normal course of things, you’re not going to see many square-rigged vessels here in mid-coast Maine (although you could see USS Constitution if you drive down to Boston). You’ll see fore-and-aft rigs, where the sails run above the keel rather than perpendicular to it.

A Bermuda-rigged sloop. This is the most common silhouette you’ll see wherever pleasure boats congregate.

A boat’s sails all suspend from a vertical spar called the mast. This transmits all the power of the wind pushing the boat through the water. It’s really a marvel of engineering, especially since the kinks were worked out before the age of composite materials. There are some other spars whose names will be useful to know: booms, which run along the bottom of the sails, and gaffs, which get raised up in the air. Not every sailboat has gaffs, but they all have at least one mast and boom to hold the sails taut.

A gaff-rigged catboat.

A catboat is small and has a single sail on a single mast set well forward in the bow, or front of the boat. (I think this would be the perfect painter’s boat, especially if I could find one towable with my Prius.)

A sloop also has one mast, with only one sail in front of the mast. If that head-sail multiplies, your boat has morphed into a cutter. Reliance, the 1903 America’s Cup defender, could be rigged as either a sloop or cutter. I drew Reliance to illustrate that single-masted boats can be gaff-rigged as well as Bermuda-rigged. She was a peculiar thing, built only to win America’s Cup and then sold for scrap. Like all transitory things, she was, oh, so pretty.

A ketch. Angelique is far prettier.

Ketches and yawls have two masts, with the back (mizzen) sail smaller than the front sail. The difference is that in a ketch (like Angelique) the aft mast is meant to push. It’s pretty big. A yawl’s mizzen sail is very wee, almost vestigial, and is way to the back of the boat. It’s basically an air rudder, used to keep things in balance.

A yawl (or y’all, for those of you from the south).

Schooners started out having two masts, but three-masted schooners were introduced around 1800, and the spars proliferated from there. The only seven-masted schooner, the steel-hulled Thomas W. Lawson, was built in 1902. It was 395 ft. long.

While you might run across Victory Chimes, a three-masted schooner out of Rockland, the rest of the Maine windjammer fleet have two masts. A schooner’s forward mast is shorter than its mainmast, giving it an appearance of eagerness. Schooners come in all kinds of sail configurations.

A schooner’s foremast is shorter than its mainmast.

Your assignment is to find a photo of each of these sailing vessels and sketch them out as I did, paying particular attention to where the sails attach to the masts, the angles at which the gaffs are running, and the height of the masts in relationship to the length of the hull. This is not about sailing, it’s about attention to the details that matter.

If you aren’t interested in boats, you can do the same exercise with cars, motorcycles, or varieties of apples; I don’t care what they are, just that you have six objects from the same class of objects.

The point of this exercise is not to create six beautiful boat drawings. It is to show you how much you learn by sketching. At the end of it, you should have a clear sense of why sketching in the field is a far better preparation for painting than taking photos is.

Remember, those of you who love boats: we’ll be sailing with Captain John Foss on the most beautiful of all windjammers—American Eagle—in June, studying watercolor painting on the move. For more information, see here.

My little assistants. I drew the boats and they colored.

February 2, 2018

Four workshops this summer

One might be coming to a town near you.

American Eagle and Heritage, photo by Carol L. Douglas

I’m teaching four workshops this year, which is the most I’ve ever taken on. (I’m already in training, hiking around Rockport to get my endurance up.) They’re in different places, appealing to different tastes and budgets. If you’ve ever wanted to study with me, this would be a great year to do so. Who knows? All this exercise might kill me soon.

Yours truly, painting at Rye (photo by Brad Marshall)

Rye, NY, May 11-12: Rye is a quick jaunt out of New York City for those of you who want a pastoral workshop but can’t travel to Maine this year. I’ve painted in Painters on Location for many years, so I know the village and its boats, beach, buildings and waterfront. We’ll meet at the Rye Art Center and move out from there to explore locations around town. This class is for all levels and all media, and will focus on simplifying forms, planning a good composition, gathering the necessary visual information from life, and interpreting color relationships.

Cost: $350 for the two-day workshop. Call the Rye Arts Center at (914) 967-0700 for more information.

The Devil’s Bathtub, on a wetter, woolier day than we’ll be experiencing. (Courtesy LazyYogi)

Rochester, NY, June 2-3: I’ll be teaching at Mendon Ponds for two days under the auspices of Greater Rochester Plein Air Painters. I’m excited about the location, since it’s a designated National Natural Landmark because of its glacial topography, which includes a kettle hole, eskers, a floating sphagnum moss peat bog, and kames. Here, we’ll concentrate on painting the drama in the landscape while remaining true to the subject. We’ll concentrate on skies, slopes, and reflections. The fundamentals of design, composition and color will be stressed.

Cost: $200 for the two-day workshop, with an early-bird discount before March 1. The flyer is here, and the registration form is here.

American Eagle in Penobscot Bay.

On board American Eagle, out of Rockland, ME, June 10-14: “There are many painting workshops on the Maine coast, but The Age of Sail promises to be the most unusual,” wrote Maine Gallery Guide. This four-day cruise aboard the restored schooner American Eagle is a great way to loosen up your brushwork. We’ll work fast, concentrating on reflections on water and the powerful skies of the Maine coast. All levels of painters are encouraged to join us. It’s an all-inclusive trip, including meals, berth and your materials for water media.

Cost: $1020 all inclusive. Visit here for more information, or email me.

Corinne Avery happily painting at Schoodic.

Acadia National Park’s Schoodic Peninsula, August 5-10: My long-running Sea & Sky workshop remains ever-popular, with many returning students over the years. We spend five days in the splendid isolation of Acadia’s Schoodic Peninsula, far from the crowds on the other side of the bay. There’s wildlife, surf, rocks, jack pines and more. A day trip to the working harbor at Corea, ME, is included. Our accommodations are at the Schoodic Institute—located deep in the heart of the park—and include all meals and snacks so that we don’t have to stop painting.

Cost: $1600 all inclusive. Visit here for more information, or email me.

October 31, 2017

Wanna go sailing?

I’ll wager that you won’t find a more interesting brace of workshops anywhere.

The light is ever-changing on the open water.

If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you know I moved to Maine for the painting. The light, the sea and the granite coast have drawn artists here for 200 years. I was just the latest sucker they snared.

In the early spring of 2016, I wandered into the North End Shipyard and asked if I could paint while they worked. The smell of varnish in the cold morning air brought back memories of equally frigid mornings on Lake Ontario.

Exploring off the American Eagle.

That summer, Captain John Foss asked me to sail with him on the American Eagle. I painted some work I really liked. This October, I went out with them again, bringing watercolors instead of oils. I found that watercolor is perfect for capturing the changing scene from a boat under sail. And it’s less intimidating than oils. Several people tried painting with me.

This trip includes a gam, an open-water raft up of boats. That’s been known to include rowing troubadours.

When we got back to land, Captain Foss and I designed the perfect trip for the artistically-inclined boat lover. Next June, he and his crew will sail us around the coast of Maine on their beautifully-appointed boat, providing berths and all our meals. I will teach you watercolors.

From the galley.

Can you even paint on a moving boat? Heck, yeah, and it’s fascinating. The water, sky and shoreline are constantly changing. We’ve scheduled this workshop for the longest days of the year so that we’ll have plenty of time to paint sunrises and sunsets while at anchor.

What if you prefer your ocean from the shore?

Schoodic is a wild and isolated place, but still accessible from Bangor International Airport.

I offer a workshop at Acadia National Park’s Schoodic Institute every August. This is designed to help the painter find his or her own voice and style. It’s intensive, with morning and afternoon on-site painting sessions and lunch-time demos. Classes are kept small so every student gets the attention they deserve.

All mediums are welcome.

Acadia is famous for its ocean breakers and big granite outcroppings. I’ve ferreted out some very exciting spots to paint, both in and out of the park. By the time your week is done, you’ll be at one with the wind, waves and pounding surf.

Breakers by Carol L. Douglas.

Schoodic offers many other non-painting entertainments for the outdoors enthusiast. There’s biking, mountain climbing, fishing and hiking all in the immediate area. Seabirds, dolphins and grey seals are regularly sighted off the coast here.

Both trips are also all-inclusive, so you don’t have to worry about meals or accommodations. And both are designed so it’s easy to bring your non-painting partner.

The instruction is one-on-one and intensive.

Why am I mentioning this now? Christmas is coming, but that’s not all. If you register before January 1 for either workshop, you get a discount. And I’m willing to wager that you won’t find a more interesting brace of workshops anywhere.

You can learn more about both workshops here.

August 11, 2017

What we’ve learned so far

I teach a painting process. Are the personal epiphanies just an extra benefit, or are they actually the heart of the matter?

Becky being mugged by a seagull.

Schoodic Point is the crown of Acadia’s Schoodic Peninsula. It is so vast that I save it for later in the week, when people have gotten the need for the broad vista out of their system. Its grandeur is best expressed in the particular: in a shelf of granite, a tidal pool, the pines, or the hammering surf.

Fay’s pines. I apologize for the quality of the photos; they were taken under incandescent light.

Rocks are three-dimensional shapes with volume. In that, they’re no different from houses or a boat. Too often they’re painted as a wall, or as cut-outs. At lunch, we discussed how to draw them using wireframe shapes and perspective drawing. These are the first steps to creating depth. Without them, all the atmospherics, color and haze you lard on the canvas will only partly convince your viewer.

Jennifer’s unfinished nocturne.

In the time I’ve been teaching at Schoodic, visitation has steadily risen. That means my students endure a certain amount of kibitzing from bystanders. They took it in good humor, as I expected. This is a cheerful, untroubled band of painters.

Nancy’s lighthouse.

At one point, I found Becky, who lives nearby and understands the population pressure on this park, drawing a detailed map for someone.

“I thought you didn’t want to encourage more visitors,” I accused.

“But she had a cute dog!” Becky replied. What a toughie.

Becky’s rocks and surf.

Every visitor to Maine needs a lobster, so we had a lobster bake in the evening. Our crustaceans had been hauled out of the sea earlier in the afternoon. “It was very tasty,” reported Jennifer. (I’ve already exceeded my quota of lobster for the season.)

Linda’s lighthouse.

We critiqued paintings in the evening. I’ve tried to get a photo of work by each person, but the light wasn’t great, and my fingers were in some of the shots.

Maureen’s pines.

Maureen suggested that each person talk about what they’d learned. One teaches in the hope that one’s students learn something, so I was naturally curious. Maureen was struck with the idea of drawing first and cropping afterward, so that her painting wasn’t crammed into a box. Some people said they hadn’t really understood how to work fat-over-lean. And toning the canvas was a new idea to others.

Ellen’s surf.

But a lot of things mentioned had to do with attitude, things like being willing to try new things, or accepting mistakes, or the difference in how we think or see as we work.

Don’s surf.

I teach a painting process. I’ve assumed that the personal discoveries were just an extra benefit from not worrying whether one is doing it “right.” Now I start to wonder whether they’re actually the heart of the matter.

Maureen making a painting carrier from a box.

After our critique, we brainstormed a box for Nancy to take on the plane today. Predictably, it was Maureen who solved the engineering question. She is never going to buy something she can make from junk. I admire a fellow frugal spirit.

Today, we go to Corea to paint lobster boats. We’ll have a final lobster roll on the wharf. Already the fog is rolling back and another pink dawn appears. We’ve been particularly blessed in people, places and weather this year.

August 10, 2017

That’s one sassy ocean

The rules work, even when we don’t notice. That’s as true in life and painting as it is in Acadia National Park.

Photo courtesy of Jennifer Johnson.

I’ve been getting workshop permits for Acadia National Park since I moved my workshop up to Schoodic Institute. They mean paperwork and expense, and nobody ever asks for them. Sometimes I wonder why I bother.

Yesterday, a ranger stopped by. “Do you want to see my permit?” I asked excitedly. “Oh, please, do you really want to see my permit?”

Becky comfortable near that sassy ocean.

He already knew we were going to be there; he was just stopping to check something else. I’m glad that the park rangers know what happens in the park, and that I haven’t been wasting my time and money complying with the permitting system.

Even if we aren’t aware of it, rules continue to be in effect. That’s as true in the universe as it is in a National Park, and it’s a good thing. Nobody wants the earth potting off into a different orbit because it’s sick of the one it has.

A demo on the rocks near the Mark Island Overlook.

It is also true of painting. Many paintings of Ralph Blakelock have darkened beyond seeing because he puttered with the chemistry. It’s a terrible pity, because he was a great painter.

The ranger and I chatted for a while about the most inscrutable (to civilians) rule of national parks, that you can’t take natural materials out. “If we have three and a half million visitors and each of them takes home a rock…” he began. In some places, it might save on dredging, but I see his point.

The Mark Island (Winter Harbor) lighthouse was built in 1856, with a keeper’s house added twenty years later. It’s a handsome assemblage of whitewashed walls and staggered rooflines, and it’s far enough away that one can’t really do a stereotypical lighthouse painting. Instead, it must be in the context of its landscape, with Cadillac Mountain rising behind it. The scale relationship is a little misleading, because Mark Island is less than a mile offshore and Cadillac Mountain is several miles away.

A lighthouse painting doesn’t have to be about the lighthouse.

Look north or south and there are sweeping diagonals of pink granite tumbling to the sea, framed by dark spruces and crashing surf. And the seas were definitely crashing. “You sassy ocean, you!” cried Becky as a great long foaming breaker blew over the rocks nearby.

A student studying mixing greens. (Photo courtesy of Donald Fischman)

A sea fog approached and retreated, finally cloaking us in soft pink cashmere around sunset. That was appropriate, because yesterday’s demo was on the color of light. This subject is like one of those drawings that flips from being a vase to two profiles. It’s easy to see once you get it, but difficult to explain.

Ravens Nest is fine for an individual painter but not for a class.

As the afternoon ended, several students walked down to Ravens Nest. I never teach there. There’s no guardrail, only pot warp strung from tree to tree. There’s no room for a large group to paint safely. But it’s an interesting geological formation and quite pretty.

We’ll be heading to Schoodic Point this morning. As I type this, I can hear the surf crashing. The sky is fair and pink. All signs are good for another great day of painting.

July 6, 2017

The perfect size painting class

Bigger art classes are easier for the instructor, but not necessarily good for the students. Neither are very small classes.

A delightful day at Owls Head.

“Do you ever offer private lessons and if so, what advice can you offer me on what I should charge?” a painting instructor asked.

There are very few things I won’t do for money, but private painting instruction heads that list. Learning to paint is all about repetition. I show you a technique, and you repeat it until you’ve got it. The best balance for plein air painting, I’ve found, is a class of 6-9 people. Fewer, and I am crowding my students with too much information. More, and I can’t pay enough attention to their needs.

The wilder the terrain, the fewer students I can teach. That’s why I often use a monitor at my Acadia National Parkworkshop. He or she handles problems of logistics, freeing me to concentrate on painting questions.

The rockier the terrain, the fewer students you can teach.

“How many people are in the class?” a person wrote me this summer. That was one smart cookie. We’ve all taken workshops where the instructor tries to manage a group that’s much too large. Teachers cope by doing long demos, but that’s unfair to the students. They might as well watch a video.

Rushing around on rocks can lead to injury, as we discovered a few years ago.

It’s easier indoors. Classes at the Art Students League were very large, but I wasn’t neglected. I benefitted from the instruction happening around me as much as from what my teachers told me.

A big group is easier to teach than one or two people. Teachers are only human, and humans are essentially proprietary. The longer we spend at a students’ easel, the more we want to take over.

Demos have their place, but they’re no substitute for one-on-one attention.

When I’m first looking at a student’s work, my mind is fresh. One or two things immediately jump out at me for correction or praise. I can articulate them and move on without meddling. That keeps the focus clear and directed.

Give me a enough time there, however, and I start deconstructing the painter’s vision. Students tell horror stories of teachers who have repainted whole sections of their work. That’s hard to avoid when you’re spending too much time with a single painting. You get proprietary.

The right size class makes for lots of attention but no hovering.

Handicapping conditions don’t necessarily require private lessons. They can often be accommodated surprisingly well in a class. Several years ago, I taught a mobility-impaired student in an outdoor workshop. We made sure there was a safe, flat, level site available at every painting location. She brought an assistant with her.

If you choose to teach private lessons, you should charge based on your hourly earnings for teaching a class. Tot up the number of students you usually teach, multiply by the class fee, and divide by the number of hours you spend on that session. Add travel time if you’re expected to go to the students. $50-75 an hour is not an unreasonable fee for your undivided attention.