In a Garden of Delights

We arrived at the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens in Boothbay, Maine for a day of painting amidst the flowers...

It is a fairly new location which opened to the public in 2007. It features 248 acres of woodland, trails and landscaped gardens in addition to shoreline on a tidal river. Visit if you get a chance.

Marcus came along on this trip. How lucky can I be? He also offered to transport my gear to my painting location.

The garden is so large and varied I couldn't take time to tour all of it and still get a painting done. I was alerted about a predicted thunder storm so I decided to paint in the part of the gardens that wasn't too much of a hike from the car.  It was a summer Sunday, so the place was packed with visitors from everywhere. 

The first garden we entered was "The Lerner Garden of the Five Senses." 

There was running water that meandered throughout the garden traveling via brooks and rills from pond to pond to lower levels of the garden.  

The first painter I bumped into was Debra painting a view from the pavilion. The colors spread out before her were beyond belief...  

It is quite a challenge to paint this and all the other brilliant colors surrounding it...

And John...who was set up on a rise above the labyrinth and joked about his minimalist approach to all this overwhelming color!

Every view was another explosion of blossoms...

It's early July after all...what can you expect?  Summer in Maine!  All nature is celebrating.  

There is a small forest pond in this garden that I would love to have in my back yard. A path of huge flat stones crosses right through the water. In my search for the perfect place to paint I knew I had found it.

It is beautiful!  The only problem was I would have to set my easel up right in the pond or in the plant beds and there are rules about that.

I went back and set up on the wooden platform near the lower pond. No disturbing the vegetation that way. 

At midday some of the water lilies were open.  I'm not sure why some are closed unless its because they are baby blossoms.  They are smaller in size so that makes sense.   

I assembled my big easel which has now become my favorite set-up. Its so nice to have that shelf to hold my paint box and everything I need. 

There was color galore all around me. What is this attraction to flowers I'm having this summer ?  Maybe its my love of gardens.  I've always gardened and have even designed a few simple gardens. I think that if I wasn't a painter I would be a garden designer. 

I packed my gear on this trip so that everything I needed was in my paint box. I duct taped my brushes to the lid so they wouldn't get crushed and bent.  

The spot I picked was really nice. It was on a quiet cul-de-sac with two benches and a view up the lower pond into the gardens beyond.  

Here I painted several studies of the pond and the lilies.

It was perfect to focus in on a specific area and keep it simple in the midst of the overwhelming multitude of choices. I could paint here for days and in any season and still not run out of an amazing variety of subjects.

I didn't even get to see the "Birch Allee" or the meditation garden on the shore line...the garden was closing up for the night and so were the lilies...I'll have to come back and paint another time. 

Salt, Seaweed and Quiet in East Boothbay

I've wanted to paint with Plein Air Painters of Maine since I first found them while searching for local painters on the internet...

It is the only plein air group that paints regularly in the state of Maine. 

They paint every week somewhere in midcoast or western Maine. I went up to Boothbay to paint with them.

  There is only one road from southern Maine to the midcoast region. It is coastal Route 1, a small two lane highway with spectacular views. 

The midcoast region of Maine is very different from southern Maine where I live.  In the south one is close to the open ocean. We have crashing surf and lots of wind.  To reach the open ocean in midcoast Maine you have to drive down a long pennisula before you see it.

When we arrived at the PAPME painting location on Boothbay Shores along the Damariscotta River we discovered Suzanne Brewer painting on the beach!  

We parked the car nearby, set up and went to work. 

The sun was warm and the cool breeze off the water was pleasant. 

The area was quiet. We saw a handful of walkers and bikers. Every now and then a car drove by. Working boats went up and down the river and in and out of Ocean Harbor. 

Marcus set up next to me to paint with acrylics. Brave guy ! He has no experience painting, never mind painting outside.  He is hoping to become good enough to enjoy it and maybe become a Sunday painter... like Winston Churchill who enjoyed plein air painting as a way to de-stress from his overwhelming responsibilities.  

Painting en plein air can be very calming. Its so demanding that you have to give it your full attention and forget everything else.   Zen mind, painters mind!

Boothbay was a new location for me so I decided to paint 4 small field studies of 4 different views.

There  was a nice variety of things to paint without even moving from our spot. 

Now that it's almost the summer solstice the sun feels like its at high noon for hours.

Marcus focused intently as he placed the different colors on his field sketches.

As the sun shifted into the west I finished my sketches and started to pack up.  A SUV drove up and a woman got out and said "Mary?" It was Corinne McIntyre a founder of Plein Air Painters of Maine ! She heard that I had arrived after she left that morning so she drove over to meet me!  

She  offered to  take us on a tour around the tip of the pennisula and show me other painting locations. We drove the entire loop road on the pennisula. The views were gorgeous. Islands were scattered across the water.

Corinne showed us a nice trail along the water to great painting locations on Grimes Cove.

This area is a very old seaside summer community.  The roads are right along the water. You can park right on the edge of the sea and enjoy the view. 

Three trees is a distinctive and well known spot.

Before we left East Boothbay we stopped at Corinne's home and Ocean Point Studio/Gallery. It was chock full of her paintings of Boothbay and midcoast. What a delight ! I'm heading back later this summer to visit her and paint some of these lovely places.