Friday, January 29, 2010

Damariscotta and Pemaquid Point

These watercolors are from my midcoast 6 day trip. My good friend Libby lives next to a dirt road that leads down to acres of meadows and forest along the Damariscotta River. Here is the view from a lower meadow.
From up behind the church in the center of Damariscotta I could see the boats in the harbor. While painting there a lady came up and gave me directions to a tiny cove in Round Pond where she said I would find a beautiful place to paint. I went the next day and she was right!
It was a perfect summer day. The Damariscotta River was filled with boats. These are some that were sailing up and down the bay as I was looking across toward Boothbay.
This sketch is of the boat shed in South Bristol where Pete Seeger 's boat "The Clearwater" was built. As I was drawing this scene a man came by and told me his father said the day they launched The Clearwater you could walk across the water from South Bristol to Boothbay on the beer cans floating in the river! It was a huge celebration!
Later that afternoon I went out to Pemaquid Point. Behind the light house I noticed this out building way across the lawn at the edge of the pine woods. It was in a nice, shaded, cool spot on a hot summer day. It was in the 90's that day with no sea breeze.

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Monhegan & John's Bay

I've been in the studio for the past two months painting from my summer plein air studies. This past year I did a ton of watercolors ! Surprised me as I just tried it outdoors for a lark. They are so easy to use compared to oils. There is no set up. I just pull this tiny Koi color box out of my bag and paint in the pages of a notebook.

This trip was for 6 days down the peninsula from Damariscotta to Pemaquid Point and out to Monhegan. Here is a fish shack in South Bristol.
On Monhegan I painted the harbor from Fish Beach.
The day was sunny and gorgeous with horsetails in the sky over Manana.
I settled for lunch on the rocks along the harbor and painted this view of the town dock where everybody comes in their battered, half alive pick up trucks to pickup visitors and their luggage. Its a mob scene !