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Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Plein Air Fundy Paintout

This week is the first annual Plein Air Fundy paintout. We've got 12 artists from the Bay of Fundy region painting in Lubec, Maine, and on Campobello Island, NB, and in other places close by. (For more, see www.pleinairfundy.org.) The week will close with an opening reception for our exhibition on Sunday, the 29th, from 2-4 ET at the historic Mulholland Market in Lubec. The exhibition will continue through August 25th.

It's been a good weather week. Except for a bit of drizzle the first day, and a couple of mornings of fog, the sun's been out with just a few clouds around to keep the sky interesting. On Sunday, I painted at Upper Duck Pond. Here's the first painting, a 9x12 oil:

(Click on the images for a larger version.)

On Monday, I returned to the Upper Duck Pond with painter Deborah Healy. The tide went out while we worked, and the clamdiggers showed up with their big wheelbarrows and high boots to work in the mudflat. (I did not include the clamdiggers in my piece.) Here's this day's painting, another 9x12 oil:

On Tuesday, we had quite a bit of fog along the Lubec Channel, but it didn't deter my taking a student there - I'm also teaching a workshop this week - plus painters Lisa Bradbury and Martha Kierstead from our group. I did a demonstration in the fog of the "Lubec Sparkplug," the caisson-style lighthouse out in the Channel. You can just barely see the Sparkplug in the upper right. (Excuse the glints of light off the wet paint!) The painting is 8x10.

Finally, Tuesday afternoon I continued work on a painting that I'd started a few days earlier. It's only an 8x10, and you'd think it wouldn't take more than one session, but I needed to correct a few problems. I had been a victim of "creeping shadow" - the shadows moved on me while painting with the sun directly overhead. Those raking, straight-down shadows of windows and roof overhangs move, and if you're busy concentrating on some other area of the painting, you may not realize that the patterns have shifted. I fixed the issue in just a few minutes. Here's the painting, which is of my studio gallery and my wife's lovely garden in front. This is also an 8x10.


Last night, the artists in the Lubec/Campobello area got together for dinner at the Lupine Lodge. David Reeves and Tim Gaydos plus a variety of spouses and 'significant others' joined us for a well-earned meal.

As I write on Wednesday morning, we are again fogged in. But I can see a tiny glimmer of sunlight, so perhaps it'll be another great day!