Glorious September

The weather lately has been a gift–clear, sunny and comfortable; I’ve been getting out to paint most days. I must say though that it was something of a relief when it rained yesterday and I got a chance to catch up on some things inside. I’ve needed to sand and gesso some panels so now I have plenty of supports ready for the near future. This painting was done just up the road from us. I loved the lighted yellow around the edges of the huge tree and the smaller apple trees in the distance with their shadows and dark trunks. We’re getting a lot of wild asters everywhere so it’s nice to have that little touch of blue violet as a slight discord.

I’ve been rereading Carlson’s Guide to Landscape Painting. Every time I look back through it I notice more useful information. There is so much to keep in mind!

September Afternoon 11 x 14 oil on birch panel $325

Change of Seasons

I started this painting early in the summer but could never get back to the site at the same time of day to finish it. Yesterday I finally went there but all the colors had changed so I had to turn green into gold. Clearings like this are a common sight around here; logging is constantly in progress. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries Vermont was large cleared land for farming and sheep. But after so many people left for richer, less rocky soil, the state has become largely forested. A good thing Vermont does is to give a tax break to people who keep a certain number of acres in either forest or farmland so there’s less incentive to develop this beautiful part of the country. We’re in that program since our place is all wooded. We have to have a forester so periodic cutting is managed properly to keep all the trees maturing in orderly fashion. (It tickles me that we have a forester–sounds like having our own gamekeeper!)

The Clearing 12 x 17.5 oil on birch panel $350

Red Barn

The weather has been beautiful and I had a wonderful time with the landscape group this week. We’re always scouting locations and our leader found a place where we could walk up a rise and then look down on a house and barn. Everybody paints barns but they do have so much character. The perspective from where I was standing was a challenge; the roof seemed unusually long and low. But nothing (except maybe the NY Times Sun. crossword) engages me as intensely as figuring out perspective. Fall foliage is getting more vivid every day. This is my favorite time, with the yellows and ochres still muted and with a lot of green still mixed in. Peak foliage sometimes seems to me not quite believable. Anyway, it’s really nice to have a change from all the unrelieved green of high summer.

Red Barn 9 x 12 oil on birch panel $250

Another Experiment

I thought I’d try using oil like watercolor–thinned out with turp, making some of the colors run together. It’s probably not a technique for pleine aire but it’s an interesting challenge because it has an unpredictable quality. I usually prefer not to paint from photographs simply because it’s more fun to paint from life and because there’s more information when the real scene is before you. But there are times when a photograph is all I have–particularly when the weather’s cold, or when I’m just passing through somewhere and don’t have time to stay and paint. Anyway, with this painting, I sloshed on the colors, dripping them together and sometimes throwing on pure turp, wiping out the spots I wanted to be light instead of using any white paint. It took several layers and because turpentine dulls the finish I glazed over the whole thing, tweaking and deepening colors here and there. I’m eager to try this approach some more. I don’t know that it would work for everything but I’ve enjoyed the process with this one. The scene is from Cape Breton but we had to leave so I got a photo that I changed around a bit.

Rocky Slope    oil on birch panel 12 x 12   $300

Truro, NS

After we left Cape Breton we drove toward Yarmouth to Truro where we checked into a wonderful bed and breakfast place owned by a delightful young Dutch couple. After a lovely tea our host noticed that I was looking all around and suggested that I might like to consider the field behind their property–a perfect location.  The weather couldn’t have been better and I painted away happily while a bald eagle soared overhead. After a while flocks of Canada geese started flying over as well. I grabbed my nifty new camera with the “no blur” feature and got some photos so I could stick the geese in later. I loved this landscape which seemed appropriately Dutch–low flat land and lots of sky but with some mountains and a few buildings in the distance for punctuation. The cloud pattern was beautiful, criss-crossed all over the sky. It’s hard for me to imagine a better high than having good weather and an interesting landscape.  How I love retirement!

Nova Scotia Landscape with Canada Geese 9 x 12 oil on birch panel $250

Last Morning in Cape Breton

I got up very early our last morning in Cape Breton to paint before we had to check out of the motel. The cove was pretty dark but just before I had to pack up and dash off the sun touched the top of the rock and a little of the surf. The rock formations remind me of some of the rocks in impressionist paintings. Cape Breton was so beautiful it was frustrating to have only a couple of days there. I’ve had little opportunity to paint the ocean on site and hope in the future to study it further and do more.

Early Light at Pillar Rock 9 x 12 oil on birch panel $250

Cape Breton Island

We had a long drive today to Cheticamp, right outside the Cape Breton National Park. To our surprise it was really hot when we got here. We drove around through the park until about 5:00 when I set up to paint at Cap Rouge. Not long after I started a terrific wind came up and blew the whole time I was painting. It was a good thing the support was a heavy, thick birch panel; a canvas would have sailed right away.

Cap Rouge, NS oil on birch panel 9 x 12 $250

Sketches

This morning we took the “Cat”–a huge catamaran ferry– from Portland to Yarmouth NS. Since everybody had to be at the pier by 7:00 a.m. a lot of people slept for a good part of the five hour trip.   I had a rare opportunity to do quick sketches of several people who weren’t moving around–perfect models. Now we’re in the tiny town of Lunenburg, off to Cape Breton tomorrow. I keep thinking we won’t have an Internet connection at the next hotel but so far so good.

Well, these two played a board game before they nodded off.

On Our Way

We’re in Brunswick, ME now, on our way to Nova Scotia so I probably won’t be able to blog for a while.  Went to the Portland Museum yesterday–a really impressive collection, with a special exhibit of the work of Harrison Bird Brown–a new discovery for me.  And then we visited a wonderful gallery here in Brunswick.   Every time I go to a museum it makes me wild to get back into my studio to experiment.  (I look at art greedily for things I can use.)   My hope is that the weather will be good enough to do some painting on this trip.  Everything I see here in Maine looks like a painting.

Garden Party

Friends had a party in a beautiful garden to celebrate their combined birthdays. It was a chilly, windy day so everybody arrived wrapped up in jackets and shawls. But the sun came out and the weather was beautiful all afternoon.

When I was in California this summer I admired the work of Eugene Boudin in the Norton Simon Museum. He had done some small paintings of figures on the beach–just dabs of paint to indicate faces. So I was trying to do the same with this painting. It’s of course from a photograph but I made sketches and moved figures around to get a better, more simplified composition.  (The balloon was not there but a touch of red is often helpful.)   I find it much harder to paint at this tiny scale, even with tiny brushes, but I like small paintings.

The Garden Party 6 x 7-3/4 Oil on masonite $100 unframed