Incoming Storm Sebego Lake, Maine

Incoming Storm - Sebego Lake

Acrylic 18"x 24"

This acrylic was painted on location at Harmon's Beach Sebego Lake, Maine many falls ago.  I can remember the day like it was yesterday.  I used a heavy french easel which I had to prop against a tree to keep it from being knocked over by the strong wind gusts.

It was so cold, that when I finished painting, I couldn't drop the paint brush, I needed to remove it from my right hand with my left.

I was focused on the water and sky, amazed at all the colors that we often think of a simply a grey day.  Like any painting I look at later, there are some things that I would do differently now, but i was and still am pleased with the effort.  I captured things that I could never have imagined because it was painted start to finish on location (en plein air).

When I look at this today, I am transported back to that moment in time.  I can hear the crashing windblown surf, and feel and hear the howl of the wind and the spray from the waves.

If you've never tried painting on location, I'd encourage you to do so.  Don't let people talk you out of it talking about all the challenges - its worth it.  I've found that even though some of the effects I'm trying to capture in nature are still beyond me, the mind takes in far more than you are aware of at the time.

For me, sometimes, things go exactly as I hope, or I have happy accidents, and I have a picture ready to frame.  At other times, I use the piece as a reference for a studio work, or I use bits and pieces of what I've painted in other painting compositions.  Others simply are stacked up in the studio. the result of many lessons learned - unlikely to ever see the light of day (or the internet).  Still it is time well spent, in my opinion.

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Low Tide Dennis Mass

Low Tide - Dennis Mass

This large charcoal was an elaboration of a quick on site sketch from last summer on Cape Cod.   I will likely do another sketch based on this but with high tide / storm surf.

With this drawing I experimented with applying charcoal and blending with a brush in parts.  There are so many different ways to blend charcoal and the effects of different types of charcoal are also so different.  This drawing was completed with both vine charcoal and compressed charcoal.  Compressed charcoal produces a very rich dark stroke.  For me, vine charcoal also can produce a wide variety of shades, but not as dark as compressed charcoal.

I prefer to use vine charcoal - its very thin and fragile, but I enjoy both the visual effects of the vine charcoal as well as the tactile feel of utilizing it.  It may sound kind of strange, but the vibrations of the charcoal over the tooth of the paper is as close to running your fingers directly over unmarked drawing paper as is possible.

If you are wondering, I utilized a paint brush for blending in the sky and in part in the mid ground.  The remainder of the painting I utilized both my finger as well as a kneaded eraser to blend and lift out highlights.

If you read the recent post on the Lone Pine, you would  turn 180 degrees to see either view (with a little artistic license) - the actual background of the lone pine would have been more dunes and no ocean.


https://robertkahlerlandscapepaintings.blogspot.com/2019/07/lone-pine-cape-cod.html

Grey Day Eastport Maine

Grey Day Eastport Maine

Watercolor - 7" x 8.5"

This watercolor was completed on location during my recent trip to Eastport.  Overall, the weather was beautiful, but we did have one grey day with showers.  I had to seek shelter in the car and the sky opened up.  I do really enjoy the occasional rainy day.  The sound of rain on the roof and windshield was so soothing.

The atmospheric effects during the brief time it took me to complete this painting were amazing.  At one point,  the sea smoke / fog rolled in all but obscuring the building.  At other times, the rain was so heavy and the thickness of the fog varied so that some or most of the building was obscured.   Some of the islands in the harbor seemed to be floating in the air, the horizon was indistinguishable.  All of these changes in effects occurred within a half an hour to 45 minutes.   I could have done a half dozen paintings from this same view and they would all have been different.  I did take some notes and photo's of some of the different views and may well give a few of them a shot.

I observed for about 10 minutes and then got a scene that I wanted to paint.  It changed constantly throughout my painting, but I was pleased with the accuracy of the final result.  I decided to paint this scene in Monochrome (indigo) as the patterns of light and dark and muted reflections were what drew me to this scene.  

The tides are also amazing to observe.  This was a rising tide,  At low tide, the pier to the left and much more beach is totally exposed.  The ocean is slowly reclaiming its territory.  Large concrete sections of the pier weighing tons have fallen underneath the pier as erosion defeats human construction.

Going to new or in this case. less familiar places is always so inspiring and reminds me to observe my daily surroundings more carefully.

abstract seascape study

Here is another full sheet watercolor study by Elmer L. Ham.   The pictures don't do it justice.  It has an almost abstract quality about it.  It strikes me as another on location study.  Faint pencil lines block in both the major masses of rocks (Feels more like California than Maine to me) as well as of the wave action - see below.

The sense of movement is captured and the white of the paper also is utilized effectively to capture whitecaps as well as foam from waves crashing on rocks.  It all implies to me a familiarity with the ocean as well as this particular location.  That is only reinforced by the deft strokes of a loaded brush throughout the painting.  

This strikes me as a rapidly executed sketch (you have a max of a couple of hours before the light changes too much - and my reality of painting along the coast is that you tend to have a shorter window).  But everything is contained within this first pass to allow the artist to go back at any time to finish the painting or to use this as a basis for a finished painting.

I will show more of his completed seascapes in future posts but I enjoy sharing some of my interpretations of the artists thinking.  They are not complete but , for me, the sense of movement is there and I can hear the surf (it could be the tinnitus but I prefer to think it is the surf)

Tumbledown, Fall

Tumbledown Mountain, Weld Maine

Fall is unquestioningly my favorite time of year.  This is an on location watercolor sketch completed years ago.  This was completed in one setting.  At the time I was very interested in capturing the brilliant fall colors, in particular the color showing through the trees between me and the mountain.   

As I’ve mentioned in other posts, sometimes when painting on location I find it easy to get lost in the subject in front of me.  Particularly in earlier years.  I would, and perhaps I will, rearrange the elements in this painting differently to strengthen the composition while maintaining the integrity or the sense of the place.

If you’ve never tried painting on location, please do.  It is challenging and such a joy.  I was incredibly fortunate to be introduced to drawing and painting outdoors when I was introduced to art. I’ve never known anything else. 

One of the gifts of painting on location, and there are many, is the strength of the memory of the location.  Rarely do we spend hours observing and interpreting the world around us.  It’s been more than a decade since I painted this picture.  I can remember the temperature, the sound of the wind through the tall grass, the warm feel of the sun on my face and the chill of the fall air that the wind carried even into this sheltered location.  There are also things that you may observe in nature that aren’t readily captured by photographs.  It may even be something you see on the way to the location that you decide to add to the finished picture – An interesting tree, old barn, or a tree that stubbornly refuses to lose its leaves when all around have long since surrendered to the coming of winter.

Speaking of winter.  I so enjoyed observing the muted colors during today's Nor Easter and will use the observations to attempt my first painting of a snow storm in action.  More later.