Loosening Up in Kennebunkport, Turbat's Creek & Cape Porpoise, Maine

Early evening on the lawn of the Breakers I did a quick sketch to focus and decide on the motif of my painting. It was a beautiful, calm evening, a pleasant temperature, with a bit of sunlight hitting the trees. I was looking north into the harbor with clouds along the horizon.

There was a large party closeby on the lawn under tents and I wanted to do a 20 min field sketch. I knew I'd have interruptions and knew I'd also loose my light real fast!

I started out following the sketch. I painted on a 6x8 panel. I was about 15min into it placing a couple of boats in the fore ground when I decided the detailing of the boats was making the composition look cluttered. I was getting more onlookers at this point and people were starting to chat so I put a few highlights and accents in and called it a wrap. Here's the finished pochade. (Kennebunkport Harbor Evening , 6x8, o/p SOLD)

The next day I went to Turbat's Creek to paint and the place was awesome - a piece of old Maine seacoast tucked hidden in Kennebunkport! I walked around and looked at all the different views. There were many paintings to be painted at this great location.

The top sketch is of some of the fish cottages on Turbat's Creek. My focus was the great looking fishing shacks.

The lower sketch is looking out to sea at the mouth of Turbat's Creek.



These two sketches also made at Turbat's Creek were looking north out across the creek toward Vaghan's Island and east toward the tip of the island and the mouth of the creek.

A week later, I decided to do a color exercise with the black and white sketches.

I usually use the sketches on location as I paint my oil field studies but here in the studio on a rainy day I limited myself to a different palette of colored pencils. It was a great exercise. And it really makes the mind work when the color you want is not available to use nor can you mix it!

Checkout the difference in the colored pencil and black and white sketches above - these are the original sketches with color added.

It was a challenge to not have my usual three colors (yellow, red & blue) at my disposal to mix any color I wanted. It was also a great way to see how I think in color and how I use color. I was stuck with using a pencil of a fixed color to try and substitute it for another color I would normally mix to get the effect and mood I was after. It was fun and liberating to do this exercise !