Castine Plein Air Festival - 1

Castine, Maine, is always pretty at this time of year.  The elm trees are tall and deep green, casting cool shadows over the white clapboard houses.  Sailboats sit sleepily in the bay until the afternoon breeze kicks up, and then they wake, raising sail and heading out.  The town is quieter, too, since the Maine Maritime Academy is out of session for the summer.  You'd hardly know that there are 40 painters here now.

I arrived yesterday after dropping off new work at Argosy Gallery in Bar Harbor.  (See my previous post on that.)   After checking into my lodging, I headed over to the Castine Inn for the "meet'n'greet".  I saw several familiar faces but many new ones, too.  I was talking with one artist who, like me, as been here each year since the festival began, and she thought the mix has been shifting over the years.  Shifting to what, I'm not sure, but it'll be fun to see work by some new artists at the opening on Saturday night.

Threat of a weather change on Friday pushed all of us out early today.  It's been warm (80) and today, muggy, but you never know what the weather will bring.  I think many of us did quite a few paintings today.  I made four:  two 9x12s, one 8x10, and lastly in this diminishing series, one 6x8.  My first one was a scraper, so I did the honorable thing and scraped it, and then made a second attempt, which was more successful. 

This year, I will be focussing on boats.  (Oh, and the Dyce Head Lighthouse.)  I'm not quite ready to share all of today's efforts yet, pending better photographs and a computer screen I can trust (I'm on my Nexus 9 tablet, and the paintings look a little weird), so I will post one or two at the most.  Other than that, here is a series of photos from the day.

I'll write a longer post next time, but for now, enjoy!