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| Find the painter! |
Summer's over—well, for me, anyway. After teaching an all-level plein air workshop and then running a painting retreat for experienced artists here in Downeast Maine, it's time to start packing up the studio. (But wait! I'll be teaching at Pastel Live, starting August 17. You can find details on that here.) I can't believe my time on Campobello is over.
The all-level workshop took place the first week. Students came from Arizona, Pennsylvania and New Brunswick to enjoy the cool oceanside. We had a few hours of fog some days, but we could still see plenty, and it gave us the opportunity to really study and understand values—an essential skill for beginners. At sunny times, we focused on how color temperature differs between sunlit surfaces and shadowy crevices and with distance. While going from easel to easel offering help, I observed porpoises playing just a hundred feet offshore while lobster boats came and went, checking their traps. Painting from life immerses us not just in our subject but also wholly in the environment around us.
Here are a few photos from the workshop week. In my next post, I'll write about the painting retreat.
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| 9x12 oil on one of the sunny days. |
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| 9x12 oil on one of the foggy days. |
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| You can't beat early morning fog for atmosphere. |
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| The fog didn't give students any problems and, in fact, kept us cool! |
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| One day, we painted on the main street in town. |
As much as it's sad to see my summer coming to an end, I'm looking forward to next year. With that in mind, I've scheduled the following for Lubec, Maine:
- All-level plein air painting workshop: July 31-August 3, 2023
- Painting retreat for experienced painters: August 7-11, 2023
Both weeks filled up very quickly when I announced them last year. If you'd like to join me next year, I urge you to sign up soon. Lodging can also be difficult to arrange if you wait too long because these weeks are “high season.” And after this summer of record temperatures across the northern hemisphere, I imagine people will start booking for next year as soon as they can. You can find all the details at my website.
