Spring Comes to Perkins Cove

It was a typical spring day on the coast.  A  huge fog bank drifted in over the land then moved out to sea along with the tide.

Perkins Cove in Ogunquit, Maine is shifting gears from its quiet winter season...

...to the popular summer hot spot it has become.

Everywhere, boats were getting ready for the season.

I  was so busy sketching I didn't notice the name on this sail boat until Marcus pointed it out..."Quick Draw".  

This tiny protected harbor has a fleet of lobstermen who are active all year.

The boats were returning from their morning run. 

Traps were piled on the docks. Lobstermen were loading new traps onto their boats.

Freshly loaded and ready to go for tomorrow morning!

Perkins Cove was created by connecting a man-made trench from the Josias River to the sea.

I sat on a bench sketching on Fish Cove, the original harbor the fishermen used. 

Fishermen liked Perkins Cove, and so did artists. In the 1890's Charles Woodbury founded a popular summer art colony in Ogunquit. His great grand children still live near the cove. 

Perkins Cove used to be busy with fishermen and artists working and selling their art to summer visitors.  Now the former fish houses are little tourists shops.

Marginal Way. 6x6 watercolor, Rives BFK

This is my watercolor kit for the day. Two small color sets and a tiny water jar. I can carry everything in one hand and my pocket.

There are so many tourists in the summer that artists can only easily paint in the cove off season... the town limits the amount of time you can park here during the summer. 

Using my water-filled brush makes quick sketching easier.

Rocks, Perkins Cove. Lobstermen Parking

6x6 watercolor, Rives BFK.  

The S.S. Crusher is the town's ice breaker. What a face! It is used on cold winter mornings to open the harbor so the boats can go out. In winter the cove freezes overnight because there is so much fresh water flowing into it from the river.

The landing above the docks offered a great view of the cove.

Fred, the harbor master, built his own boat last winter. 

I quickly sketched a few boats. 

The cove has a pedestrian draw bridge. It is the only user operated drawbridge of its type in the US.

The sun came out for a couple of hours drying the watercolors nicely !

Moored in a row. 4x6 watercolor, Rives BFK 

Michelle V. 6x6 watercolor, Rives BFK.

Baby Jess. 6x6 watercolor, Rives BFK.

Spring Fever

Its happened ! Even here up north where we still have 3 feet of snow in the woods and all over our lawns...it was 52 today and the snow is almost gone from the marshes...

On the Mousam River in Kennebunk, ME the high tide left bits of ice stranded up on the edge of the marsh. The open ocean is just on the other side of that small peninsula.

I decided this afternoon was perfect for sketching. It was so beautiful I wanted to go to as many locations as I could. 

When we stopped at the Rachel Carson marshes in Kennebunk it was low tide.  

It so nice to be out when its  peaceful and calm. There was just a hint of breeze coming up the mouth of the river from the ocean.

Sketching with charcoal on multimedia paper is my latest thing. I like to try different materials and mediums. I'm going to paint these sketches with watercolors back in my studio.

The tides this winter changed the shoreline of the river. Small islands are forming along one edge. Nice shapes...I'm going to paint these for sure! 

Sketching trips like this are great.  I get to scout old and new locations, see the changes and see what catches my eye.  My equipment and supplies are so compact I can carry them in one hand. 

I am a student of the sketching /drawing school..I can never sketch or draw enough.  It is such a liberating activity... free of the pressure to have to make something...

...and I end up really seeing things, sketching them over and over and seeing them differently each time...   

You get to to know your subject intimately, all the nuances of light, weather, temperature, chroma, value... 

It becomes something of yours...something beyond a depiction of a place.  

Marcus drove us around on this sketching expedition. We were traveling instinctively. He turned down a road that took us to the end of the peninsula we earlier saw from the marshes.

At low tide you could walk out to Strawberry Island.

I set up my paints for a quick oil sketch of the sun on the water.

Marcus sketched leaning against the side of the car.

The challenge of this situation was the back lighting and unbelievable reflection on the water.  It was blinding.

I wanted to do a small sketch with just yellow, red, blue and white and mix all my lovely sensitive grays from them.  I'm teaching a color class and want to show them what a limited palette can do.

The last stop on our wander was the town dock in Kennebunkport.

The parking lot was empty. In summer this place is packed with trucks. It was quiet, the harbor was empty, almost all the lobster boats were gone...in dry dock somewhere.
 The tide was coming in and the moon was rising.  It feels like spring.

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Traveling, Sketching & Painting in the Great Outdoors

When I arrive at my painting location I always grab my sketch book and start to look around. 

After a bit of wandering something usually grabs my eye so I stop and set up my gear. If its at all possible I like to paint near my car, then I don't have carry a bunch of stuff and I can set up in minutes and get started.

I do two or three sketches right away. I use ink, gray markers, charcoal and now my latest newest sketching tool is a mechanical pencil! I love how smoothly it moves over the surface of the paper. 

I paint in watercolors, acrylics and oils. I learn a lot by painting the same subject in different mediums. 

After I do several sketches I like, I usually pick one and use that one as the "map" for my oil painting.

It isn't unusual for me to go home after a plein air outing and paint a watercolor after I've finished an oil painting on location. 

I think the most important thing I've learned from painting in plein air is that my eyes always see everything differently than the way a camera does.

I never got into a habit of painting from photographs so when I decided to paint landscapes I just went out side to do it.

It was a shock to go outside at first. I didn't have any painting equipment so I just grabbed an aluminum easel from my studio and threw my paints in a canvas bag and lugged the whole thing out on location.

When I saw the potential of painting outside, and thought I might really like it,  I broke down and bought the cheapest gear I could find.  I found a Julien french easel on sale for half price.  

Little did I know I would become totally hooked on plein air and I would only want to paint outdoors !

I didn't sketch when I first painted en plein air.  I was always in such a hurry, afraid the light  would change and I'd better grab it fast.   

At some point I started sketching. 

The sketches evolved from a way to get familiar with a location, to a way of seeing the location intimately, to seeing the sketch as a unique part of the whole outdoor process and a finished statement in its own right. 

I went from painting exactly what I saw, to interpreting what I saw, to transforming what I saw...

I really like to go out and paint in all kinds of weather and lighting conditions...

I look at how other painters handle winter scenes, lighting conditions, rainy weather... 

I especially like seeing how artists painted the same or similar landscapes  that I paint...

So of course I love looking at any of the great painters who lived in or came to paint in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and Massachusetts.

And I love looking at the Russian painters work as they  painted some great winter scenes...

They painted some snow scenes that make my locations along the coast look like a temperate climate... 

I'll often be on a location and think of another painter who painted long ago in the exact same spot I'm standing in... once I was in the White Mountains looking for a place to paint so I pulled off into a road side rest area to look around.  I glanced up at the mountains above me and saw a totally familiar sight, but I knew I'd never been there before.  As I stood there staring I realized I'd seen a painting of the scene in front of me that had been painted in that exact spot 100 years ago...

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