Cruising the New England Coast in Search of Painting Inspiration

Jeremy's Skiff 5"x7" oil on gessobord

My husband and I have owned two cruising boats over the last 30 years. A cruising boat is one that’s suitable for travel outside of protected bays and comfortable enough to live on for days or weeks at a time. We’ve had both a sailboat and a lobster boat style power boat. We’ve spent the night in many beautiful harbors from Cuttyhunk in Buzzard’s Bay to Northeast Harbor, Maine. As a painter the scenery and the boats we see on the way are inspirational.

When I see a boat that I want to paint, we get into our dinghy and circle it a few times so that I can see the light on different sides and from different angles. We may have to do this at different times of the day as well. And I often paint my favorites more than once. Jeremy’s skiff, featured above is probably the boat I’ve painted the most, about 10 times so far. I have many photos of it. It was built by a lobsterman in Yarmouth Maine, as a tender to his lobster boat.

The Owl and the Pussycat  10"x10" oil on canvas panel

I sometimes change things about the boats I paint, but never the shape. I’ll change the color and give them a new name. I did the name change to these two boats that we found in the harbor at Little Cranberry Island in downeast Maine. But I didn’t have to change their colors, they already worked well. I was looking for a name for the rowboat that would be reasonably short, look good as a reflection, and a name that I would use on a boat. I came up with Owl, and it didn’t take long before someone said, well, the lobster boat needs to be the Pussycat. Perfect! When I posted the painting on Instagram, I quickly got a comment from a fellow who lives across the bay on Big Cranberry Island. He had built the boat I called Owl, at Jarvis Newman Boatyard. It only took him two guesses to figure out which one of the many of this model they’ve built it was. I meet so many nice people this way. And some day I’m going to visit their boatyard and see how they build these classic rowboats.
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Truro Marsh 5"x7" oil on cradled panel

Of course I don’t always paint boats. This is a marsh in Truro, on Cape Cod, that I was particularly taken with, because of the tide level showing the mudbanks and the spit of land in the distance. Tidal mud can be so many beautiful colors! On this painting, I used a knife to apply the paint rather than a brush.
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