When a Painting Connects

A Monet Day, 24" x 24", oil on panel

It's such a joyful experience when a painting connects with someone. Such was my experience at a recent artwalk in downtown Bangor which resulted in the purchase of this painting:  A Monet Day.  The buyer is a friend of a friend who has recently moved to Maine. While I had met her before, this visit to my art walk exhibit was the first time she had seen my work. She asked for the full tour, painting by painting. She is an art collector and especially loves to own works by artists she knows. When we arrived at this painting, she really responded to it: the colors, the fluidity of the marks and glazed areas. I told her that last summer I had spent a few days painting at the Lily Pond in Stonington, Maine. I had done several paintings on site, one from which this larger one was conceived. She knew the place. While new to living in Maine, she's had a brother here for years, and on her very first visit years ago, he took her to the Stonington Lily Pond, his absolute favorite place. She had been looking for a very special birthday gift for him, and this, she decided, was it!  I took it back the my studio to frame and now it is in her home, waiting to be delivered to him.

I learned how important it is to talk about a work. Prospective buyers like to hear the story of the work, the place, the process. You just never know how the story will resonate and make a connection.

Leaving the camera at home

This summer I decided to leave my camera behind while on painting excursions, leaving only sketching as an option for recording the experiences. I did this for a week on Monhegan Island, a week in Stonington, Maine, and several day trips. Some sketches were more detailed, but here's an example of thumbnails I did on location in Stonington. Doing sketches really makes one look carefully at the landscape. While only recording the essentials, and doing some serious simplifying, one can set up the structure of a painting, while totally absorb the experience of the place.... color, atmosphere, light, temperature. The painting above the thumbnails was done later, in the studio, directly from the sketch on the right.