In The Studio: A Day At Chuck’s House, Camden Maine

These 4 watercolors were painted on the Friday before my 2 week workshop in Rockport, Maine.  I spent the day with a great friend and we painted all day at the glorious home of my friend Chuck.  The view is spectacular overlooking the Bay and his house is tucked away back behind the famous belted Galway cows.  What a wonderful day it was.  All 4 of these paintings are on 12×16 300 pound coldpress watercolor paper.

Clouds were rolling in and I wanted to capture the darks of the clouds against the light sky just above the horizon.  I darkened the foreground to really focus the painting on the sky.  This was a really quick little painting but when you have your center of interest determined and a good approach to the painting then they should be pretty direct, especially outdoors.This painting took a little longer to pull over building the darks of the trees, preserving the wonderful light that was behind the row of trees, and over painting the bright greens took a little bit of care and practice.  I splattered the reds across the foreground to get a little complementary contrast at the center of interest.The light was getting grayer and the shapes were harder to make interesting.  I tried to keep the colors interesting yet true to the foliage and grass I was looking at.  I think the only part of this painting I really am happy with is the handling of the trees against the sky.This painting is all about the cows laying next to the fence and sadly they are pretty weak.  My original idea was for the cows to really be a big part of the painting and I just missed the mark.  I needed to make them a bigger shape and put a darker color on them, but it was my fourth little sketch for the day and I was happy to be painting and happy to be at a beautiful location to paint.  Remember the effort and process of painting is the important part learning to paint and even the less successful pieces have a lot of worth.