Acadia Shore, 12x16

Yellowstone, Yosemite, .....

.....Acadia?  The three most popular national parks.  Who would have thought?  Evidently the Grand Canyon doesn't come close....but Acadia is both beautiful and unique.

So that is where I found myself the day after landing and driving to mid-coast Maine.  One of those sunny, rainy, windy, cold, warm days typical for a changing season kind of time.  I had a lot of possibilities to choose from but I went with an 'overcast with emerging blue' approach. 

When I'm out there painting I think that what I've done is too vibrant for the conditions but so often, when I see it later in room light, I wonder why I didn't push the color more.  Even so, the colors I did use float pretty well together.  I wonder what it would be like to paint with rose colored glasses....

While there I hung out a bit with Daniel Corey.  Here is a link to his work at the Camden Falls Gallery: HERE   The photos on their website don't do Dan's work justice.  Perhaps they just need to be seen in person so you can appreciate his color and edge handling.  He was a finalist in the recent Raymar panel competition and is deserving of the recognition.

Rockport Harbor, 7x9

I just returned from Maine.....

....where I met a bunch of talented artists, hung about the art galleries, chain sawed my way out the driveway (there is a story there) and learned a lot from Colin Page, one of those handful of painters I would call masterful.  More on all that later.

I did some drawings and especially enjoyed the relaxation of doing this one, as it allowed me to get 'into the zone'.  I took some progress shots which I'll have in the new version of my book 'Value Sketching With Markers' which I've been promising will come out soon for too many months....so it has to happen pretty quick.

There were a number of ways this could have gone but I liked the double masted boat up on blocks and chose to have the shadow line move the eye into that area.  I didn't make it up, all that shadow was there...but it was also other places so it got subdued.  One example is the shadow under the foreground ramp was just as dark but I made it slightly less so to reduce its significance.  Ditto for some other parts.

This art thing can be a lot of fun...and I do enjoy those markers.