Sep
22
2015
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.
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First quick painting, trying to capture dappled light on the mountains
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colorful wet-on-wet treatment of Hadlock Park and some of the painters.
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Low horizon view from Hadlock
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sketch from the Maypole (I think) with paint added at home
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Flowers in the garden.
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Painters on the beach. Maybe my favorite this year.
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View from the Dock
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Another Dock view, with Dan’s boat
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Pier pilings – drawn *last* year with watercolor pencil, painted at home with acrylic
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Presentations by Melissa Sweet and Ashley Bryan, introduced by art historian/curator Nick Clark
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Ashley’s hands
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The crowd waiting for lobster rolls at Red’s in Wiscassett
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Sand Beach in Acadia Nat’l Park
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Views from the mail boat heading to Islesford
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More views from the boat
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More views from the boat
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Kayakers near the Maypole house on Little Cranberry
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Another presentation by Ashley (one in each painting session)
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The quintessential Maine painting
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Painters on the foggy beach, seen from the pier
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The seagulls’ favorite pier
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The most awesome tree
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Driving down to Portland, the clouds were AMAZING
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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!
Sep
17
2015
On Tuesday I returned from a fantastic trip to Maine (where I attended and helped teach the Islesford Painting Workshop). I will post lots of art, photos and thoughts from that experience soon, but in the meantime, here’s the other thing I did Tuesday: went to a great author event at Politics and Prose with Jonathan Stroud (Bartimaeus, Lockwood & Co.) and Eoin Colfer (Artemis Fowl, WARP). Jonathan charmed and Eoin cracked up the large audience crowded into P&P’s kids department. Here’s a page of sketches of the scene.