Lapstrake Dinghy - 5"x7" gouache on paper

When we got home, I made some drawings from the different viewpoints that I found in my photos. These were freehand, first with pencil and then over that with felt tip pens and ink.  Such an enjoyable way to spend an evening! I even made a drawing using various cross-hatching techniques on fancy blue paper from Ruscombe Paper Mill. Thanks to Rob Adams both for the cross-hatch lesson and introducing me to this lovely paper.

Then I began to paint. The gouache painting came first. It was kind of a “let’s try this out, it will be fun” exercise. I decided to paint the sailboat to which the dinghy was tied a nice blue. Yesterday, I found this painting when looking through some canvas panels. I thought I’d lost it in our move, and was very happy to find it again. Gouache is an interesting medium. It feels a lot like oil paint during the painting process, despite being water based. But it does need glass when put into a frame.

Lapstrake Dinghy - 9"x12" oil on linen panel with knife

The Blue Sailboat's Dinghy - 16"x20" oil on linen panel

Monhegan is .7 mile wide and 1.7 miles long, and is not developed like the rest of the Maine coast. There are less than 100 year round residents, a working lobster fishing village, and a thriving artist's community. The island has no paved roads and visitors cannot bring cars, but if you are willing to walk, you are in for a treat. Two thirds of the island is protected as a nature preserve by the Monhegan Associates, "an island trust which has accepted the responsibility of holding and maintaining the land in its natural form, for all future generations to enjoy". Seventeen miles of natural trails encircle and crisscross the island, through meadows and forests, onto the headlands, and along the coves and ledges. Birdwatchers, nature lovers, and photographers will all find something to interest them. You'll likely see painters in both the village and on the ocean side cliffs. You can download a trail map of the island, courtesy of the Monhegan Associates, here.

How can you get there? Monhegan is served by ferries from three Maine harbors, from southwest to northeast, BoothBay Harbor (Balmy Days Cruises), great for a day trip, and for a longer stay, Round Pond (Hardy Boat Cruises), and Port Clyde (Monhegan Boat Line).

Where can you stay? The largest hotels/BnBs are the Island Inn, the Monhegan House (my personal favorite), and the Trailing Yew, each offering an experience unique from the others.

I hope I’ve peaked your interest, and you get to visit Monhegan this year. Fall is a great time to visit.

Martha Gayle - Port Clyde - watercolor on paper, in my sketchbook

It's almost summer and I'm starting to think about this year's annual cruise down east on our boat. And of course, that reminds me of previous cruises, and the beautiful boats we've seen on our travels. (If you're wondering where down east is, check it out at www.bobbiheath.com/blog/what-does-down-east-really-mean.)

Sleeping In - Southport Island - 10"x12", oil on canvas panel

It’s a special treat to be able to do this on your own boat. You get to decide the itinerary, and we like to alternate between quiet nature spots, often on islands, and pretty harbors, often with lobster boats. You know I love those! We also enjoy heading out with friends on other boats or meeting up with them at various times during the cruise. 

Friendship Sloop - Southwest Harbor - 8"x10", oil on canvas

We see lots of boats on this journey, and I focus on them, taking photos, sketching, and painting, usually with watercolor. What catches my eye is color and style. And I prefer to be on the sun side, which sometimes means maneuvering our boat to get there.

Red Sailboat 3 Times - Boothbay Harbor - watercolor on paper, in my sketchbook

I’m particularly attracted to lobster boats. Drawing them is challenging and rewarding. And you get a different view as they move around on their moorings with the wind and the tide. Sailboats are fun too, showing the wind with the angle of their masts and sails.

Diligence - Freeport - 6"x6", oil on canvas panel

All of this is wonderful reference material for larger paintings in the studio in the months when the boats are no longer in the water.

Two paintings of snow, both using the same color scheme, of blue, white, and a dark. The painting with four trees uses neutrals and the painting with the fence uses bright colors.

As a part of a color scheme, we needed to look into another characteristic of color, which is saturation. Saturation is the brightness of the color, brighter is more saturated, and as the color becomes less saturated we call it a neutral. In most paintings there will be some more saturated and some more neutral colors, depending on the mood and conditions that are being portrayed. For our lesson we created two paintings of the same subject, one where we used very saturated colors, and another where we used neutral colors. I think it was the most popular lesson in the 6 week session.
 
Do you have a preference for bright colors or for neutrals? My students were surprised how much they liked the neutral paintings that they created. I myself, as you will have probably guessed, love bright saturated color.

Picnic Island - 6"x8" oil on canvas

You may never have heard the term "Oxford comma", but you've likely seen it many times. It's the second comma in the phrase "red, white, and blue". Also called the serial comma, whether to use it is a matter of personal preference. Google can fill you in on the pros and cons. Recently overhearing a conversation about the comma, I started thinking about similarly controversial topics in painting, of which I'm sure there are many!

Before Sunrise - 7"x5" oil on linen panel

The topic I came up with for today is whether to include black paint on your palette, or to mix your blacks from other colors. Once again, this is a matter of personal preference. Those on the pro side include the Tonalists, who use black to limit chroma, even in their skies. I used that approach in the example above years ago in a class taught by Deborah Paris.

Little Whaleboat Island - 5"x10" oil on canvas board

Black is also commonly used with various yellows to make greens. The painting at the top of this email and the one above this paragraph were painted using black and cadmium yellow medium to create the greens. It works really well.

Of course there is more than one black paint on the market. The most common are Mars black, Lamp black, and Ivory black. Mars black is made from iron oxide, Lamp and Ivory black are made from carbon. The later are somewhat transparent and slow drying, the former is opaque. For more information look here. I've read comments online as to which of these blacks is more warm or cool, but it sounds like the variations between the manufacturers may swamp this distinction. The bottom line is you'll have to try them for yourself.

The Sternman - 16"x20" oil on canvas panel
No black paint was used in this painting.

What’s hanging on your kitchen walls? We’ve got three paintings in our kitchen at the moment. One is a still life of strawberries, one a cognac bottle with glasses and the other a floral. All of them are painted by my friends, some of whom were my teachers.

Three Satsumas - oil on canvas panel, 6"x12"

I know, I’m a morning person, but there are many artists who’ve done the same thing, painting at night. It’s creating a painting from start to finish, in an hour or two, over and over, that imprints the process on the mind and creates muscle memory.

And, I'm not knocking refrigerator art. We have lots of that too, pictures of good times with our friends, our son and the grand dogs, and wonderful paintings made by young artists we love. The refrigerator is an excellent bulletin board!

Let's start with this question:
Is it possible that you've missed some of the basics?

There are two basics that will continue to frustrate you if you don’t address them: drawing and values. And just because someone told you weren’t good at drawing doesn’t mean it’s true! There are lots of ways to learn to become comfortable with drawing, and that’s what’s most important. Once you’re comfortable, and you put in a few minutes of practice each day, your drawing will improve quickly.

I’ve got a free class called Confident Drawing for Artists on my website. Feel free to check it out HERE. Use the Register link (top right in blue) rather than the Log in link. Once you register, I’ll quickly approve the registration, and you’ll have access.

The other basic is an understanding of how to use value in your painting. Value is simply the light or darkness of each shape in the painting. You can see values in a photo if you use your phone to change it to black and white. It’s the pattern of shapes with different values that creates the composition of a photo or a painting, not the line drawing by itself. Yes, that’s what I’m saying, the combination of the line drawing and the value shapes is the composition. Once you start looking at your work that way, it will be a lot easier to create a compelling painting.

I’ve got a free resource on my website for values as well. It’s a simple PDF that will show you how to see the values, an exercise to drive that home, and a tool to help you as it becomes second nature. Feel free to check it out. Here’s a link. 

You won’t be surprised to hear that boats are also a go to subject for me, especially for drawing practice. I love to sit on the dock or on our boat, and watch the other boats swing around on their moorings. Though moving, they give me the same view every 30 seconds or so. I have to be fast with my pen or wait until the next swing.

Sunflowers - painted with gouache first, and oils second

 AFTER - Thomas Point - 6"x6" oil on canvas panel - 2010

There is no better way to get better at something than to practice. We’ve all learned how to ride a bike and drive a car, and we learned by practicing, falling down, and probably getting our first traffic ticket.

But there’s more to it than just practice. How I practiced made a huge difference in becoming a better painter. The three principles described below were key. I think you can find analogies to them for anything you want to learn, such as cooking, or playing an instrument. You can see the change in my work through the paintings I’ve used to illustrate this post. There is about a year difference between the Before and After paintings, and during that time I used the techniques described here.

AFTER - Farm Pond Pines - 6"x 6" oil on canvas - 2010

First, you'll have the most effective learning experience if repetition of the whole process is part of your approach. For painting, it's best to paint several small paintings from start to finish each week, spending a short time on each one. Spending many hours on one painting doesn't build the muscle memory that the previous approach gives you, and you'll never become comfortable with the parts of the process that are hard for you. If you have stacks of partly completed paintings sitting around, it's likely because you're getting stuck, and you know what I mean! The same can be said for that piano piece that I can play the first page of so beautifully, and when I get to the last page, I’m slogging my way through it with lots of mistakes.

BEFORE - Afternoon Shadows - 6"x6" gouache on paper - 2009

Second, it’s easier to capture the form in space when working from life rather than from photos. Going from three dimensions to two works best when you do that with your own eyes, rather than relying on your camera, because the lenses in your eyes are so much better. I’m not sure what the analogy is here for playing an instrument, unless it’s playing a real piano rather than an app. Perhaps for baking, it’s doing that from scratch rather than from a mix.

BEFORE - Gilsland Trees - 6"x6" oil on canvas panel - 2009

And finally, it helps in your exercises to paint a subject that's of interest, but isn't something that's really important to you, or that you've promised to paint for someone. Adding that stress subtracts from the learning experience. This is why, when I’m doing exercises, I divide my canvas into four parts. When I do that, it's no longer a frame-able picture, it's purely an exercise, and a weight comes off my shoulders. I know this works for cooking. There’s nothing more stressful than making something for the first time for a dinner party!