Spring Greens and May Gardens

It's still chilly here on the Maine coast. It always is cooler here in spring and summer than the rest of New England.

With longer hours of daylight and liberal rain showers everything is turning green!

Bright green!  There is so much green its hard to adjust your eyes to it.  Plenty of yellow too. A huge meadow in Berwick, Maine was filled with about a million dandelions.

I stopped to sketch the view.  The farmer stopped by to see what I was up to. He thought I was an agricultural agent taking notes...I guess sketching looks like note taking!  He wasn't too happy to see a million dandelions growing in his newly seeded meadow. 

This property is part of a very old farm.  A row of ancient maples on the edge of the  road were turning a bright chartreuse green.

I wanted to visit a number of different locations today, so I sketched and colored as we traveled. 

I used my water color pencils to mark some color notes. These pencils are great for quick studies. I get the basic info down while I'm on the go. At the end of the day I pull out my watercolors to fill in my notes.

The clouds moved in and out all day. 

2x3 watercolors, Rives BFK

Hamilton House  in South Berwick had misty green veils of leaves everywhere.  Everything was thriving and budding.

It has been a rough winter.  The barn at Hamilton House was missing three panes of glass from its high loft window.

The cherry tree in the barn yard was beginning to blossom.  

Big old trees that were growing near the house last summer are now gone. It made the house look bleak and a bit like "Wuthering Heights."

I sat down to sketch a cluster of tulips in a small walled garden.

 Three clusters of red tulips bloomed in a warm protected area near the stone wall.

The hum of a lawnmower filled the air. At the edge of the formal garden a landscaper mowed the steep hilly lawn.

The house and gardens overlook the Salmon Falls River. The river is tidal in this area below the falls.  It is often windy and cold here.

Clouds and steeple. 2x3 watercolor, Rives BFK 

Dandelion meadow. 3x4 watercolor, Rives BFK

Old maples. 3x4 watercolor, Rives BFK 

Island pond. 2x3 watercolor, Rives BFK 

Salmon Falls River at Berwick. 2x4 watercolor, Rives BFK 

Tulips. 3x4 watercolor, Rives BFK  

Salmon Falls River Island. 2x4 watercolor, Rives BFK 

Boats & Blossoms in Kennebunkport

Its been a cold spring along the Maine coast.  Spring is arriving in bits and pieces. The marshes along the Mousam River in Kennebunk are still brownish yellow. 

The trees are covered with red buds and still no leaves are in sight. 

6x8 charcoal & watercolor, Rives BFK

The weather is so changeable.  Sunny one day, cloudy the next . Its nice and warm then its windy and cold. 

The harbor in Kennebunkport is beginning to fill up.  These guys don't fish all winter.  A month ago there was one boat out in the river.  

The clouds overhead dropped rain every now and then so I focused on fast and furious sketching. 

My water brush delivered the perfect speedy color notes.

Mechanical pencils and my little Koi water color set are perfect for a quick set up when you are trying to dodge raindrops.

Moored, 6x10 watercolor on Rives BFK

Plowed fields and blooming forsythia, 3x5 watercolor Rives BFK

It was very quiet on the harbor. No fishermen, no parked trucks, just me sitting alone on a bench painting.

The quiet was broken by this strange, black lobsterboat.  I'd never seen anything like it. As it motored by to me I saw it was the secret service; a retired president is in town... 

Mt Agamenticus and moored skiff, 3x5 watercolor, Rives BFK

Across the street from the harbor a little shop was open for the season.  They were celebrating with blossoms of all colors piled in front on the sidewalk.  A delightful vision of spring and reminder of what is ahead ! 

Fresh Air & Frozen Water

It was one of those drop dead gorgeous early spring days... 

We headed up to Mousam Lake in Emery Mills, a small town in the "lake district" of  York County, Maine.  This area near New Hampshire is hilly and sprinkled with small, granite rimmed  lakes. 

I've been painting larger pictures in my studio so for this outdoor plein air adventure I brought a 30x40 canvas panel and my large easel. 

This place is empty at this time of the year, so I parked right on the edge of the marina with a great view down Little Mousam Lake.

The small patch of open water was edged on one side with large white pines. 

Recently I realized I don't like the conventional sizes of manufactured canvases and frames. It doesn't match my intuitive sense of dimensions for a painting.

I decided I'd use this large canvas for a number of small paintings. I sketched in 5 different sizes I liked. I wanted a variety of sizes and different views of the scene in front of me.   

Of course one of them would be a sky scape...the clouds were huge and interesting, rolling steadily across the sky.  

I really enjoy the challenge of painting several scenes at one location. It's liberating and flows naturally like sketching in a sketchbook except its bigger...  

I gave myself three hours to paint the studies and moved fast to get the paint on the canvas. 

It was chilly with a stiff spring breeze blowing right up the lake at me. 

I  love having my car near by while I am painting.  When I need extra supplies I just have to turn around and reach for them in the "car studio".

I needed 2 bungie cords to hold my canvas on the easel. But the easel didn't even budge in the wind.  I LOVE this set up !  

As it got later in the afternoon the wind began to die down.

It may not look like it; but I am racing along with these paintings. One of the things I didn't have to think about was the tide changing, which is a nice thing about fresh water, it doesn't disappear every six hours ...   

I only had to think about the clouds, light and sky changing. 

As the sun dropped lower in the west the reflection on the water next to me was blinding. 

The shadows of the trees were stretching across the ice.

Pretty soon the sun went down behind the hills and the lake was all in shadow.

The clouds changed into a big,solid,misty bank that looked like it was dropping bands of distant snow showers. 

I managed to block in most of the five studies and get enough information so that I can finish them in the studio. That felt good!

As evening moved in the wind disappeared completely and these perfect reflections appeared on the surface of the water.   

For videos see: PAINT, EAT SLEEP