Saturday, August 22, 2015

Trip to Monhegan

What a great time I had.  There is something incredibly different and peaceful about that place.

I drove up, met the boat with just the right amount of time left to park the car and grab a tea.  The one-hour boat trip was fine, open water so nothing to see, there were probably as many dogs as there were people on board, strange.  Upon landing, the various hotels' pickup trucks loaded up the luggage and took it to the hotel.  I slowly walked (there are only dirt roads there and no cars except absolute necessities) into the village, had a crab roll at the fish pier, ventured up to my room where my bags were waiting, separated out the art supplies and hit the road to paint the wreck.  It was a perfect day but slightly more windy than was comfortable in that my eyes were getting wind-burned.  Lots of people came and went and the painting progressed well.  For now I'm finished with it, but it will need a few touch ups.

 Dinner was expensive and the portions were as small as an appetizer, so I ordered an actual appetizer for dessert.  I turned in early, reading up on more airbrush information.  The decor was monastic but having the windows open made for a comfortable night's sleep.  I went down early for breakfast that was good and free--perfectly cooked bacon which I never eat anymore, and I met an artist in the lobby who has been staying there every summer for about 25 years, and we had a nice chat about the Art Students League in NY and about my upcoming project at the rink.  I set off right away up the hill to the lighthouse.  It is a very steep hill and I went up there a few times during the day.  It was a foggy day so all I could do on my lighthouse painting was correct the drawing a bit and repaint the lighthouse.  Met lots more people.  It opened at 11:30 and I went into the Lighthouse Museum and also saw the exhibit of Lemar Dodd whose work was very high end, a great show.
 I had set up my painting of the big panorama of the island, the third painting I brought along to do some improvements on, but the fog was so thick I could only see the foreground area.  I never did see the accompanying island across the straight or the horizon line to be sure.  I decided to go down for lunch and wandered around the entire village and up the adjacent hill, visiting here and there, into galleries, shops, and ran into an artist I had met earlier on the trip who had work in a gallery by the fish pier.  We goes up for a month every summer and a gallery goes with the room she rents.  Sweet deal!  I got a chowder and ate it with her while we chatted.  You won't believe this, but the fog cleared while I was having lunch, then it rolled in again when I got back up the hill to my painting!  Well, I worked on the foreground that coincidently never had any attention on my previous visit, but the painting will have to wait for, yet, another visit to get anyway near completion.
 I folded my tents, as they say, and went to the hotel to repack my gear for the trip home.  The boat trip was totally fogged in, we couldn't even see the rest of the boat, but I was traveling with a couple of women I had met in the village and we just joked and laughed all the way back to Port Clyde.  I drove home for three hours in the dense fog and in the dark and when I got to the Massachusetts border the fog lifted and the thought occurred to me that it must be like having cataract surgery because everything was so clear all of a sudden.

So I finally painted because I felt like it, and tomorrow morning I'll go paint a portrait at the Church in Bradford with the Haverhill artists and Mark Hayden and Mimi.  I might have chosen to go to the Greenbelt with David Curtis except that rain in predicted.  If you are still reading this very long story you must realize by now that it is the longest post I've ever written and I promise to be quicker or shorter next time! :)

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