Brushes with the Landscape

Island's Edge Charcoal on Paper 12" x 18" This is my latest piece, inspired by many trips to Long Island, Maine and along the Maine coast in general.  The more frequently I draw, the more I approach drawings like a painting.  Not just in terms of composition, but also in terms of technique and approach.  When my drawing becomes more free, I begin to experience the "happy accidents" that occur in watercolor painting as well.  Where the effects of nature, the emotions you are feeling, appear almost unconsciously or accidentally. I've been paying more and more attention to sky.  Each day , each few minutes actually,  brings its own abstract painting into being.  The ocean, even as a storm approaches or in full storm, has always brought a sense of peace to me.  It's vastness and power always serve to put things into perspective for me.  Problems that seemed so vast, almost insurmountable, vanish in the spray and thunder of the ocean.

To the Sea Study Watercolor and Dry Brush This small preliminary watercolor is drawn from my trips Down East and also to Pemaquid.  In this study I decided to simplify, by removing the cemetery from a larger earlier study (see below) and reducing the foreground trees to one large tree on the right.  I also was interested in trying to paint the foreground field using the dry brush technique. I also am trying different treatments with skies.  It's fun to just let loose with paint from time to time! (okay, actually all the time....). Maine has so many peninsulas where the view to the ocean is still wild.  I find the contrast between the ochres of wild fields in the fall and spring and the blue of the ocean is striking   I find the views most interesting in spring, fall, and winter.  Summer has a beauty of its own but visually I find that  I'm more drawn to the play of light and reflections as the overall range of colors is reduced in the summer. More and more development, means th