Plein Air at The Kittery Town Dock

I have been teaching plein air classes in my neighborhood since May. This session is once a week from 6- 9 pm. We have great late light and awesome weather!  

Kittery, Maine is a beautiful small town on the southern most point of the state.  If you live in Kittery you have a number of great places to go swimming if you can stand the cold water. 

The town dock is packed with dories and skiffs and the harbor is stuffed with boats, both working and pleasure.  

Everybody set up in their favorite location on various levels of the docks and set to work sketching and painting. Lisa looked for a shady spot under the docks as she had already been painting out in the sun for hours before class started.   

The activity at the docks was bustling as people came in from their boats and others had just arrived and set up to fish off the docks. The air was cool and refreshing. The Stripers are running.  

Here's Marcus on a lower level dock sketching away. He's an absolute beginner and so proud of what he is doing that he shows it to everyone who will look. The complete opposite of most beginners!

Here he is trying out some water colors - I had to really encourage him to try them as he has never used any watercolor in his life and is just starting to get used to sketching en plein air with ink and markers. 

More of the dozens of dories & skiffs. On the other side of this wharf are about a dozen pontoon motorized skiffs.

Late light on the lobster boats and sail boats in the harbor. To the east behind the boats is Fort Foster that guarded the mouth of the Piscataqua River and the port of Portsmouth, when this whole area was part of the state of Massachusetts. There are very old forts all along the coast of Maine and New Hampshire. 

Nancy was set up nicely up high on upper level of the dock painting the dories below her and the view to the east.

The last pleasure boats were coming in and packing up their sails as the sun dropped low. We painted till it got dark and the salt mosquitoes came out.  They were the worst! Need to find a super repellant for them the regular stuff didn't work.