My wife and I recently returned from our annual trip to Maine. Sadly this year the occasion was the memorial ceremony for our dear friend and artistic genius Ashley Bryan, who passed away at the age of 98. To say he was beloved on the tiny island of Islesford (aka Little Cranberry Island), and throughout the book industry, is a huge understatement, and to us he was family. We absolutely had to be at this memorial, even though there were significant logistical hurdles.
Then we met up with a crew of amazing authors with whom we shared a house on Great Cranberry Island (just a short hop from Islesford and the closest accommodations we were able to find). Linda Sue Park, Renee Watson, and Vaunda Michaux Nelson. We were later joined by Ashley’s wonderful editor Caitlyn Dlouhy.
Sketches of the boat rides, the islands, and the ceremony (more on that below):
The ceremony was absolutely beautiful. We all wore pins we’d made from a “Beautiful Blackbird” craft station at the Farnsworth (Alison’s great idea!) After the ceremony there was a reception with two amazing cakes, plus a slideshow and a show of Ashley’s paintings in the local gallery, and then his family went out in a parade of boats to scatter his ashes.
We felt truly blessed to celebrate him with so many of his friends and family and even more so to have known him and spent so much time with him over the years (every year since 2007). Thank you Ashley, and thank you, Islesford. We love you.
If you want to see more of my Maine paintings, click here.
I just got back from a fantastic week on Little Cranberry Island, Maine, helping to teach the Islesford Painting Workshops. As always, it was a complete blast. Look how much fun we are having!
I’m up to my ears in catch-up tasks, so I won’t write too much about it, but once again it was great. I’m sad that this is (almost certainly) the last year it will be held, because the Dock Restaurant & Gallery which hosts it is being sold.
Anyway, here are my paintings/sketches/studies. Some are digital this time — I continue to play with the iPad, and I’ve also been messing about with Kyle’s brushes for Photoshop. On one level it’s silly trying to get painterly effects on a digital device, because a real painting “in the flesh” is SO much more awesome than any print or purely 2-dimensional representation of it can capture. On the other hand, using tools that make different kinds of marks can help one understand more about the problems of painting, and in that respect it’s cool to have a really large toolbox in a small device to experiment with.
My favorite take-aways this year: First, the idea of “carving into” a painting, usually to simplify or define the space better. Second, the realization that I am usually willing to get quite experimental with color but not so much with forms/drawing. I want to play with that a bit more.
Previous year’s workshops: 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 (2012 has the most theoretical/philosophical musing in it, if you like that sort of thing.)
So long, Islesford. The workshops may be over, but I’ll be back.
For the last three years I’ve attended the Islesford Painting Workshop, led by my friends and amazing painters Henry Isaacs and Ashley Bryan, up in the gorgeous environs of Little Cranberry Island, off the coast of Mt. Desert Island, Maine. It’s a wonderful workshop, with first class food and accommodations and very non-formulaic instruction. This year they asked me to help them teach both 3-day sessions.
It was an honor to be asked, a joy to work with them for a whole week, a sacrifice to spend less time painting, an intimidating challenge to try to contribute something meaningful to what these two great men are doing, and to continuously find useful things to say to painters who range from absolute beginner to highly experienced. I am happy to say that, based on lots of great feedback, I do feel I contributed significantly in a number of ways, and found the experience very rewarding and instructive (in relation to both teaching and painting).
On one of the sketches I wrote “wrap the space around the viewer”, which was my biggest painting takeaway from the week — I think I understand more now about why that’s important and how to accomplish it.
I found a little time to paint each day, and here are the pieces I did, as well as sketches I snuck in when I only had a moment to jot something down. The paint is gouache (opaque watercolor). Some got a little additional work/color added when I got home.
First quick painting, trying to capture dappled light on the mountains
colorful wet-on-wet treatment of Hadlock Park and some of the painters.
Low horizon view from Hadlock
sketch from the Maypole (I think) with paint added at home
Flowers in the garden.
Painters on the beach. Maybe my favorite this year.
View from the Dock
Another Dock view, with Dan’s boat
Pier pilings – drawn *last* year with watercolor pencil, painted at home with acrylic
Presentations by Melissa Sweet and Ashley Bryan, introduced by art historian/curator Nick Clark
Ashley’s hands
The crowd waiting for lobster rolls at Red’s in Wiscassett
Sand Beach in Acadia Nat’l Park
Views from the mail boat heading to Islesford
More views from the boat
More views from the boat
Kayakers near the Maypole house on Little Cranberry
Another presentation by Ashley (one in each painting session)
The quintessential Maine painting
Painters on the foggy beach, seen from the pier
The seagulls’ favorite pier
The most awesome tree
Driving down to Portland, the clouds were AMAZING
Clouds continued to amaze as we drove South.
It’s a pretty amazing workshop, and I highly recommend it. I’m already looking forward to next year!
Although I’ve been to the American Library Association‘s (smaller) Midwinter show, I’d never been to the main ALA Annual show until last week. It was a really wonderful experience. Alison and I flew out a week early to explore and visit friends in the area. Here are a few highlights of our travels and of the show (below the cut):
I was in Boston last week for a couple of school appearances. It was a super-short visit but I had about 2 hours of free time one afternoon, so I went to one of my favorite places, Mt Auburn Cemetery, to do a little painting.
I painted these in Artrage. The first is from memory of one of the beaches on Little Cranberry Island, Maine. The second is a sunset view from my porch (have I mentioned I love my porch?).
For the third year I joined the excellent painting workshop held at the Dock gallery/restaurant in Islesford, on Little Cranberry Island, off the coast of Mt. Desert Island in Maine. Henry Isaacs and Ashley Bryan do a wonderful job with this every year, the restaurant feeds us like kings, locals let us stay in their beautiful homes, and it’s always a great group of folks to paint and socialize with.
The workshop started off with the traditional day of fog, then turned sunny and beautiful for the rest of the time. I worked almost exclusively in gouache. Most of these are painted on 5×7″ watercolor postcards.
I deliberately started out out very loose and colorful
this got muddy, but I like the Turner-esque feeling of it
I couldn’t get this painting to work both close up and far away. I ended up favoring far away.
reversing and brightening colors
as the fog lifted we could see more and more boats.
painters standing by the boathouse
looking inland over the marsh
the road, looking back toward the main dock
Ashley’s Tuesday-evening presentation. The man is amazing in so many ways, but one way is his hands!
Henry gives a demo and explanation of his approach
2nd day. Working larger (11×14″), I had to use a lot of big brushstrokes and spattering to cover the paper.
Taking what I learned on the larger piece, a recreate the same scene at 4×6″
Playing with colors in the sky ala Henry. I like this one a lot.
Um, kind of boring?
The sun was fierce so I sat in the shade of the house and painted a more limited vista. Love the bottom one.
A sweet little view of my friend Melissa Sweet painting in the shade of a tree
I started day 3 with a bunch of thumbnail sketches before getting into paint
Henry challenged me to do something huge, so I grabbed the largest canvas in the shop (30×30″) and a limited palete of acrylics and did this. Not finished, but I’m quite happy with it so far.
After that big painting, I had time for one more little one. I think this is the view from the front lawn of the house where we were staying. The water came out very nice.
I finished with some more sketches. Some of these could become paintings someday if I ever find time to paint at home.
More quick sketches
Hunter’s beach on Mt. Desert
Jordan Pond and the Bubbles
Sunset on Cadillac Mountain (a subject that certainly needs color!)
The first day we had heavy rain and fog — all day 🙁 We painted from inside the Dock Restaurant / Gallery, and attempted to capture the solidity of the fog. Day two was still foggy but at least we could change locations a bit. Day 3 was glorious, for which Henry apologized several times (the man has a New England sense of humor and a deadpan delivery).
Here’s a gallery of all the pieces I did in two and a half days. Many of these I am thinking of as sketches for later paintings (which I’ll probably never get around to), or as somewhat unfinished works. The thing about goauche, though, is you can’t really work back into it very easily; so more than likely they will just stay as they are, sacrificing “doneness” in favor of (hopefully) a bit of that nice plein-air freshness.
transforming gray to color
trying to still inject color but keep a foggier feeling
Here I got the fog right, but the composition is wackadoodle
grasping for ways to capture the vibration within a solid bank of grey.
Starved for structure, I try extending the structure from the bottom into the top.
Looking for real structure, I go for the railing.
And the window frame
The fog lifts just a bit.
This should probably have been a pencil drawing.
I really like this one, though it’s much paler than what I was going for.
Gulls are always good for a break from the landscape.
As are the beautiful flower arrangements in the Dock restaurant.
A brief break from gouache on paper, to paint the garden sunflowers with acrylic on canvas
The adjacent dock. One of my favorites this time around.
The exuberance of flowering bushes on the beach in (finally) the sunshine.
Trying to capture too many things here.
Looking for a little primitivism, clean shapes and vivid color.
I think I managed to capture the water effect that fascinated me here.
I don’t know what happened here, but maybe it’s a decent sketch for later.
I recently had the pleasure of being on a fabulous 12-day tour of Greece with Children’s Literature New England and The Examined Life. It was wonderful! Alison and I took about 3000 photos, to which I will not subject you except for a few of the highest highlights, and I did a few sketches and watercolors which you can see below. Alison has written a detailed blog post here. Enjoy!