Saturday, September 05, 2009
One more week of summer
One of the finest weeks of the entire summer here in Maine happened to be this first week of September. Sunny and dry, near 80 degrees every day. I spent three days painting with a dear friend out on an island in Penobscot Bay, and to say it was heavenly would be an understatement. Wednesday was perhaps the best day - we packed a picnic and our painting supplies into a dinghy and rowed to a nearby island. We painted together, swam, ate lunch, beachcombed around the island, and rowed home when the afternoon came to a close.
We arrived when the high tide had just turned, so we were able to put the boat far up on the beach. After the first painting session and lunch, my friend got some sun while I circumnavigated the island, taking pictures and taking in the feeling of Maine at its best. I love painting the intertidal zones, they change the landscape so much with the high and low tides we have here:
I had my guerrilla painting kit with me again - I like to travel light on trips, so I left my easel behind and just brought my palette loaded with paint, medium, brushes, a few canvases and panels, paint rags, trash bag, and dropcloth, all loaded into a basket. The basket then serves as something to prop my canvas against while I sit and paint:
The painting came out well, it retained some of the freshness of the day, which is usually all I can hope for. We rowed home, wind and tide thankfully with us all the way. A day of perfection and an appropriate send-off for summer. We store up days like this, like squirrels with acorns, because we know winter is on its way, you see. We need to remember that Maine is this, too. Not just the other. (The old joke around here goes: Maine has two seasons. Winter, and Construction.)
Oh, although I brought no books with me, my friend did have books at her house, but after painting all day I was too tired to do much of anything except jot down the day's events in my journal as my eyes threatened to close. Although during my visit I did read an essay about an artist I admire inordinately. And played many games of Bananagrams... What a week. How did I get so lucky.
We arrived when the high tide had just turned, so we were able to put the boat far up on the beach. After the first painting session and lunch, my friend got some sun while I circumnavigated the island, taking pictures and taking in the feeling of Maine at its best. I love painting the intertidal zones, they change the landscape so much with the high and low tides we have here:
My friend took a few pictures of me just starting a painting of the next island in the small chain we were on, as the tide continued to fall and the currents swirled around the rocks:
I had my guerrilla painting kit with me again - I like to travel light on trips, so I left my easel behind and just brought my palette loaded with paint, medium, brushes, a few canvases and panels, paint rags, trash bag, and dropcloth, all loaded into a basket. The basket then serves as something to prop my canvas against while I sit and paint:
The painting came out well, it retained some of the freshness of the day, which is usually all I can hope for. We rowed home, wind and tide thankfully with us all the way. A day of perfection and an appropriate send-off for summer. We store up days like this, like squirrels with acorns, because we know winter is on its way, you see. We need to remember that Maine is this, too. Not just the other. (The old joke around here goes: Maine has two seasons. Winter, and Construction.)Oh, although I brought no books with me, my friend did have books at her house, but after painting all day I was too tired to do much of anything except jot down the day's events in my journal as my eyes threatened to close. Although during my visit I did read an essay about an artist I admire inordinately. And played many games of Bananagrams... What a week. How did I get so lucky.
