Sep 12 2014
Islesford Painting Workshop 2014
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.
Here’s recap of 2012 and 2013.
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.
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- I deliberately started out out very loose and colorful
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- this got muddy, but I like the Turner-esque feeling of it
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- I couldn’t get this painting to work both close up and far away. I ended up favoring far away.
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- reversing and brightening colors
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- as the fog lifted we could see more and more boats.
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- painters standing by the boathouse
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- looking inland over the marsh
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- the road, looking back toward the main dock
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- Ashley’s Tuesday-evening presentation. The man is amazing in so many ways, but one way is his hands!
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- Henry gives a demo and explanation of his approach
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- 2nd day. Working larger (11×14″), I had to use a lot of big brushstrokes and spattering to cover the paper.
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- Taking what I learned on the larger piece, a recreate the same scene at 4×6″
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- Playing with colors in the sky ala Henry. I like this one a lot.
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- Um, kind of boring?
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- The sun was fierce so I sat in the shade of the house and painted a more limited vista. Love the bottom one.
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- A sweet little view of my friend Melissa Sweet painting in the shade of a tree
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- I started day 3 with a bunch of thumbnail sketches before getting into paint
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- I finished with some more sketches. Some of these could become paintings someday if I ever find time to paint at home.
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- More quick sketches
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- Hunter’s beach on Mt. Desert
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- Jordan Pond and the Bubbles
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- Sunset on Cadillac Mountain (a subject that certainly needs color!)
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- Views from the park in Bar Harbor
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- sketched from memory on the drive South
2 Responses to “Islesford Painting Workshop 2014”
Gareth – love your paintings!!!
Alison & Gareth – thank you so much for posting the photographs. They are great. A really nice remembrance of a great workshop.
Hope to see you both next year. Gareth, I will get the book I told you about in the mail next week.
Thanks again,
Fern
Love the purple mountains, the sweet lady in the blue hat, the rocky coastlines…all of the colors you use bring the sights and even the smells of the ocean, beach and greenery alive. Great job, thanks for posting!