Posted on 05/17/202304/03/2024 by Joan Vienot — Leave a comment

Plein Air Season, Maine

Finally, it is plein air season!

The 10,000 hours rule postulates that one cannot become truly proficient at a study or skill until they have spent a lot of time at it – the “10,000 hours rule”. Now that the weather is warm here on the coast of Maine and I am comfortably able to be painting outdoors, I have 5 hours down and 9,995 to go, on my mission of learning to paint the rocky coastline.

There are winter plein air painters, but I think I might be just a fair weather painter. Much of my time outdoors this past winter in Maine, my first winter, was spent scouting out scenic locations and taking reference photos to document places I might want to paint. I probably can count that towards my 10,000 hours, since observation is key.

While I could have been using my photos as reference for painting rocks all winter, I have discovered that most of my motivation to paint comes from spending time with my actual subject rather than just using a photo of my subject. Beyond the initial attraction, it is by being present with it that I fall in love with it and want to paint the excitement I feel. Painting en plein air and drawing from life give me that direct connection to what I can only describe as the spirit of the imagery. I lose track of time and self-awareness (if the bugs are cooperating); that is when it is easier to pass into the state of consciousness where there is no separation of existence.

Last week the weather turned shirtsleeve-warm. I invited a couple of other plein air artists to paint with me at the part of Acadia National Park that is closest to my apartment, Thompson Island, the gateway to Mt. Desert Island. The painting above was painted en plein air.

The next day I went to the same location again by myself, this time trying to paint the rocks using just a palette knife. Some paintings you keep, and some paintings you scrape off and salvage the canvas, and that’s all I will say about that.

And the painting at the top of the page and at left was painted a few days later, with a rapidly rising tide requiring two relocations of my easel further up the shore. There are countless glacial erratics on Mt. Desert Island, rocks transported some distance by glacial activity 16,000 years ago during the last Ice Age. Balance Rock is of particular note because of its prominence on the shoreline. It was part of a granite rock formation some 25 miles north, quite obviously a different composition than the sandstone ledge it is balanced on.

Balance Rock, Bar Harbor, 6×12 oil, $250

On cold weather days I am practicing sketching rocks from the many photos I have taken. I’m learning to simplify, especially the myriad of surface textures.

Rocks need to be described through the planes of the surface. When painting them, I will have to be very sparing if I paint textures at all. I made the mistake of trying to paint the textures with a palette knife, last wek. After several hours and copious amounts of paint, I ended up scraping it all off, to salvage the canvas from the resulting mess. I’ll spare you that photo!

Presently I am exhibiting two works in the Acadia Senior College Members Exhibit, including the new painting above, “Shoreboats”, painted after a visit to one of the working docks I found when I first moved here last fall.

Also The Gardener, at right, was accepted into the Bangor Art Society’s juried member exhibition. The Gardener was created during the time warp at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. Our world had ground to a halt with a nationwide “shutdown” and my group plein air painting activities had ceased. So my friend Serena Robison, who supplies many local retail florists from her huge garden, invited me to paint there, a welcome respite from the forced isolation and uncertainty of the pandemic. At the back you see sweet Serena, tending her garden. This is one of my most favorite paintings.

The Gardner, 11×14, $750

The pandemic made me realize how just valuable newsletters and web-based platforms can be. Last month I volunteered to help out with the local arts organization’s website here where I live in Maine, helping to create a Member Artists page and an Exhibits page for their website. I am most proud of the virtual exhibit / slide show I made after our most recent Members Exhibit, for people who were unable to see it in person: Spring, Sprang, Sprung.

Moving Forward with Plein Air

A loose-knit group of plein air painters in the area communicate largely through text threads, but being new, I am not yet very-well-known here. So I also opened a group on Facebook for plein air painters interested in joining up with each other to paint here. It is called Plein Air MDI, Blue Hill, and Region. You are welcome to view it, though it is in its incipient stages, and most painters seem to be waiting for consistently warm weather.

I look forward to sharing more with you, now that I am outdoors painting again.

Posted on 10/29/202204/03/2024 by Joan Vienot — 17 Comments

I’ve Moved to Maine!

Completely upending my life, I’ve moved to Maine, an area of the country where I know no one nearby and the weather is hostile for at least half of the year, and I am so thrilled to be here! The beauty of the area makes up for any perceived obstacles.

My mission is to paint the rocky coastline. The contrast between the hard, seemingly immovable rocky shore, and the fluidity of the ocean is a visual dynamic that excites me as an artist and easily extends to metaphors for life and spirituality.

I’ve been exploring the area while waiting for my furniture to travel the 1600 miles from my previous home of 42 years in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida, to Trenton, Maine, where I have rented an apartment. Most of my explorations have been to the local big box stores for essentials like food, doormats (it rains a lot here), shower curtains, shelf liner, and such, the latter all nicely packed in who knows which box in the moving truck.

My trip to the Bureau of Motor Vehicles to register my car in Maine was thwarted by my title being on the moving van instead of in the packet of important papers I brought with me. I remembered my cat Rafiki’s rabies vaccination certificate, but not my car title! Other efforts to become a legitimate Mainer were similarly blocked by not having enough documentation. No worries, they give you 30 days to make those changes.

I did buy an outdoor porch chair, which I am using in my living room until my furniture gets here — my campstools just weren’t adequate for lengthy sitting at the computer on rainy and foggy days when I’ve stayed home. I’ll be out and about in less than ideal weather soon enough, but I’d rather not right now when not knowing exactly where I’m going is complication enough.

On Thursday of this week, a very pretty day, I made it over to the lighthouse at Bass Harbor Head, pictured at left. I stayed there a good while, just drinking it in, and shooting a few photos.

While on that jaunt, I also found the ArtWaves Community Art Center, which I had joined earlier this year. I happened in on their figure drawing session, an art activity that I feel is an indicator of the sophistication of the artists in an area, figure drawing being such a difficult and humbling practice. I met Liz Cutler, prior Executive Director for this nonprofit, who was very welcoming and offered me supplies and a drawing board if I wanted to join them. I had dressed for outdoor weather, so I will join them another week. But I instantly felt at home, and Liz’s welcome confirmed my expectation that wherever I move, when I find artists, I immediately have community.

I also found the sweetest country store, Town Hill Market, open M-F through the winter, and Saturdays too in the summer. I picked up two pieces of fresh-made pizza and some delicious candied ginger, yum! Best of all, it’s only 12 minutes from my home in Trenton and just a short walk from ArtWaves!

These places are on Mount Desert Island, with Bar Harbor as their address.

On my return, I turned at the sign for the Bass Harbor Terminal for the ferry to Swan’s Island, but I was distracted by the visuals of a nearby dock piled high with lobster traps hauled in for the season. The Ferry Terminal will still be there next time I go to that side of Mount Desert Island. Maybe I will ride it over just for the fun of it, a 45-minute schedule interval, $12.50 for off-season walk-on.

I was entertained by a local selling a small outboard boat. Pushing it into the water for the buyer to try it out, he got it stuck on “the only rock on the beach for it to ‘fetch’ on”. I’ve added that to my new vocabulary list.

Since I had been passing signs all afternoon saying “Entrance Pass Must Be Displayed”, I thought I had better go see what that entailed. No one from the park service had ticketed me, but I figured it was just a matter of time.

I made my way to the Hull’s Cove Visitor Center for Acadia National Park, walked up the 52 steps from the parking lot (they warn you), and met the nicest ranger who explained that my National Parks Senior Pass was all I needed, and he gave me a plastic hanger to mount it in so I could hang it on my mirror. While there, I bought a book on the geology of Mount Desert Island — might as well try to learn a little something about the rocks I will be painting!

Only two more days before I get my furniture! Silly me, ever the optimist, I thought the movers would come at the beginning of the time-window they gave, and certainly by the end of it, which was yesterday! I am a good camper, but I didn’t pack for what has turned out to be an 11-day adventure!

I must say I’ve rather enjoyed the peace and quiet of this transition though, sort of a monastic existence, without TV and creature comforts, and with the jaw-dropping gorgeousness of the National Park only minutes away. Even so, I am not inclined to get out much during weathery days. I actually love solitude, and have enjoyed my little private forays around the apartment complex, especially the well-groomed 1-mile nature trail right here on the complex property. The video at left shows a view from the trail, a pretty creek resulting from a gully-washer of a rainstorm last Sunday.

And what am I reading? More Than Meets the Eye — Exploring Nature and Loss on the Coast of Maine, by Margie Patlak.

Stay tuned for art yet to be made!

Posted on 08/20/202204/03/2024 by Joan Vienot — 2 Comments

Onward to Maine? Hurry Up and Wait

In March 2022 I returned to Florida from my two-month winter adventure in Maine, and started checking off items on my catch-up list.

But three weeks after my return, while innocently crossing the parking lot at the grocery store, I felt something pop at the back of my “good” knee. My orthopedist gave me the bad news: I had torn loose my medial meniscus root. My only guess is that it had just been hanging on by a thread. If I didn’t have it repaired, I would need a new knee inside of a year. He scheduled surgery to repair it. Argh! What a shock to my charmed life! I have run into obstacles before, but being non-weight-bearing turned out to be Full Stop for me. (Picture me bumping around backwards seated on a rolling walker for 6 weeks.) Stuck in my second-floor apartment, and having to stand on only one leg to do anything made a chore of everything and it made Joan quite the dull girl. Following that adventure, rehabilitation has felt like an eternity. I am out of the brace and have finished my work with the physical therapist, and am now working on strength and endurance, and slowly rebuilding cardio by swimming, because I am not yet walking very fast. Hopefully I soon will have a more even gait and able to stand for longer periods of time so that I can return to painting outdoors.

This drama delayed my plans. Instead of early summer, my move to Downeast Maine now will be in mid-October. I never really adapted to being laid up, staying disgruntled most of the time. I kept my dream alive by reviewing my hundreds of photos, and drooling over other artists’ rocky shoreline paintings on Instagram. Now finally, I am seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, able to stand for short periods, and I have started boxing things up. The first things to be packed, and happily, were my crutches, cane, walker, compression wraps, and my elevated toilet seat! Those will go in the far back corner of the basement in the duplex apartment I will be renting. And as of yesterday, except for what is actually on my walls, all of my loose paintings are carefully packed and ready for the movers, including my collection of other artists’ work. This week I hope to get started on my storage unit.

I thought I would post photos of a few studies I painted a year ago at an artists retreat hosted by Mary Erickson in Port Clyde, Maine. I have these hanging in my “visioning corner” in my dining nook along with the works in my last blog post.

Marshall Point Lighthouse, Port Clyde, Maine, 6×12

View from Eight Bells, Port Clyde, Maine, 9×12 oils

Cove at Artists Retreat, Port Clyde, Maine, 9×12 oils

Leeward Lean, Port Clyde, Maine, 6×12 oils

Pond Rocks Study, Port Clyde, Maine, 8×10 oils

Posted on 03/31/202204/03/2024 by Joan Vienot — 14 Comments

Winter in Maine: Testing My Cold-Weather Tolerance

Correction: If you are following the link in the 8/20/22 newsletter, please continue reading at Onward to Maine? Hurry Up and Wait.

Before making a firm decision to move to the Northeast to learn to paint the rocky shoreline, I decided to test my tolerance for the winter weather by living there for a couple of months. So I found a rental in South Portland, Maine, and on this past New Years Eve I started my drive north with my cat and some art supplies. For the most part my winter gear was perfect for my sightseeing and adventuring, thanks to new insulation technology. I think my coldest venturing was around 0°F, with a wind chill of 15 below. I did need to buy some different hiking shoes – “Arctic Grip” soles are a prerequisite for safely traversing trails any amount of snow or minimal ice. My “Yak-Trax” worked well for more seriously icy walks. But my fingers nearly froze during the three seconds I would unglove in order to shoot a photo with my iPhone. Chemical hand warmers inside my mittens just couldn’t re-warm my fingers fast enough. So I broke down and bought some rechargeable electric gloves — Best. Invention. Ever. for cold-weather photography. My raingear and snow pants did well to block the wind, which was fairly constant at the shore. There were some days that it might have been warm enough to paint outdoors, but hauling my gear up and down 2 flights of stairs wasn’t something I relished, so I painted from memory and from reference photos when I got back indoors.

A few of my sketches studying the planes and textures of the rocky coast

My experience was fairly tame, since it was a mild winter in a very civilized city. There was only one true Nor’easter and just a few storms with freezing rain. I would guess around two feet of snow fell over the two months I was there but my host did all the shoveling and snow-blowing, and the city was immediate in plowing and salting the roads.

My exploring took me as far northeast as Schoodic Point, Acadia National Park, and south to Cape Ann and Cape Cod in Massachusetts.

The area around Acadia National Park has every kind and color of rock and all of the ocean drama that I want to learn to paint. Most certainly cities have more cultural opportunities and events, but for my goal of learning to paint the rocky shoreline, it is better to be closer to my subject. I can always make day trips to the art museums in Rockland, Portland, and Boston. I anticipate that I will be more inconvenienced by the winter weather than I was in South Portland and Cape Elizabeth, but I don’t think it will be unmanageable. To be frank, the tourist season may be more of an aggravation to me than the weather. A friend of mine says our lives are ruled by the availability of parking!

And now I am back in Florida, waiting for a callback from the apartment complex where I will be renting when I move to Maine. I expect to be making the move sometime around mid-summer. I will be taking my paddle board and my canoe, but I am starting to pare down my other belongings, including my piles of paintings and drawings. Stay tuned, if you are following my Facebook page — I may be posting some amazing bargains and some freebies!

Posted on 02/07/202204/03/2024 by Joan Vienot — 10 Comments

Adjust, Adapt, Accommodate – Again

My life began taking a radical turn in a new direction a year ago while I was taking a course mentored by Dr. Michelle Gordon. The misfortune of having my official “launch” as a serious artist foiled by the pandemic in 2020 had stalled me, and Dr. Gordon’s program proved to be a good reset. The segment on healthy thinking included a fun exercise, visualizing my ideal day. I knew where this was going to go — if I could picture my ideal day, then I could start living it now, at least the parts that could immediately be put into action!

I pictured living in a grand house on a grassy cliff with giant windows looking out to sea. The view from the side windows would be the rocky cliffs receding into the distance. There would be a path down to the beach so I could easily transport my plein air painting supplies on my electric cart. The gorgeous scenery would provide infinite inspiration. Art exhibits, live theater and the symphony would be in town a mere 10 or 20 minutes away, and my daily routine would include a walk on a trail near the road. Evenings would be filled with laughter and camaraderie of small gatherings of fellow creatives sharing dinner with me, the meal prepared by my award-winning chef of course. To cement the visualization, I got out a slatted, cradled wood panel that I had picked up on a whim, and I painted the imaginary view from my house looking out to sea, and a few weeks later I painted the view I was visualizing through the side window, the receding line of cliffs. Without my knowing it, the mysterious wheels of change were already starting to turn, as I was being pulled towards my visualization. On one of my walks near my home in Northwest Florida I even caught myself experiencing the happiness of being in that ideal place — one part of my road actually was lined with the same type of grasses I imagined would be on the path through the grassy cliff!

Visualizing my ideal home: “View from the Grassy Cliff”

Visualizing my ideal home: “Side View from the Grassy Cliff”

I had no idea where this coastal cliff might be, but that detail did not matter. What would be fulfilling to me was to be in an area of exciting, endless inspiration to paint. After living for 40 years on the beautiful but flat Emerald Coast, I hungered for more dramatic landscape, scenes with a lot of angles and contrast; water crashing on sharp rocks would fit the bill. I spent a lot of time looking at the US coastline on Google Maps, looking for rocky shores with easy access, and then image-searching those areas. Northern California is supremely beautiful, as is the Pacific Northwest. But then I looked at other factors, like climate, wildfire and wind. I have vacationed on the jaw-droppingly beautiful coasts of Maine and Nova Scotia, so I started thinking more and more about New England, even though the winter might be unappealing.

Meanwhile, back to reality… A dearly departed friend used to say, “When uncertain, chop wood and carry water.” In other words, maintain routine, do your chores. For me, the chores that needed doing were necessary repairs on my house, postponed until I retired from my non-art career, and now it was time to take care of them. So, with the experienced guidance and support of my real estate friends Kim and Keen, I repaired and renovated my house and my studio and had the slightly wild-looking yard cleaned up. My contractors re-shaped the trees, graveled the driveway and carport, installed a water feature for my geothermal heat-pump, and replaced a few aging appliances. Kim and Keen then sold my house for me and my dream became a possibility.

That dream has evolved — I would like to spend the next productive part of my life learning to paint gorgeous scenery in different parts of the country — first maybe two years on the rocky coastline in New England, and then maybe a couple of years painting the spires and arches around Moab, and then possibly northern California or the Pacific Northwest, and perhaps down around Sedona or north to Glacier National Park, just letting my heart call me to the next beautiful place to paint. Or I could fall in love with the first area I go and decide to put down roots, who knows! Colorado will always be home because my family lives there, and I grew up there.

And now, just one year after visualizing my ideal life, here I am, in Maine. Actually I am here for only two months, January and February, to test my tolerance for the worst of the winter weather before I commit to moving here, and to do recon on longterm rentals. I’ve been staying in South Portland, Maine, for the month of January, exploring the scenic coast here and enjoying a little of what this sweet area has to offer. If you follow me on my personal Facebook Page, you know that I have not found winter to be a deal-breaker. February will include a widening of my circles as I look for longterm rental options. Next week I will drive up to Acadia National Park. At the end of February, I will return to my apartment in Florida to gather up my life. On the way home I will look at the coast of New Hampshire and then Cape Ann in Massachusetts.

Stay tuned to follow my adventures in this giant, intentional upheaval of my life.

And, if you have a home on a grassy cliff overlooking the sea somewhere, I would be happy to discuss house-sitting for you, if my cat Rafiki approves!

Photo of Portland Head Light, Cape Elizabeth, Maine

Posted on 02/01/201004/03/2024 by Joan Vienot — Leave a comment

Plein Air Painting in Kestrel Territory

In the fall of 2008, I took my second solo “artist” vacation. Once you get past the aloneness of it, there is something almost sacred about solitude. I had packed up two boxes of art supplies and shipped them to myself General Delivery at Stonington, Maine, on Deer Isle. Due south of Stonington is Isle au Haut, most of which is a part of Acadia National Park.

On this particular trek I rode out to the island on the mail-boat, intending to hike the cliffs trail. It was an easy hike to the other side of the island. I rounded the first curve and the view of the cliffs opened up in front of me. I saw no need to hike further! I ate my cheese and crackers and fruit lunch, and then set about sketching the cliffs.

I was completely absorbed for a long time. I had even lost awareness of how hard the rocky ledge was that I was sitting on. All of a sudden I was attacked, literally, by a very territorial American Kestrel, who dove at my head repeatedly, screaming at me the whole time. At first I was amused and awed by the small falcon, but after one fairly close call, it dawned on me that I might want to keep my scalp, so I stood up and raised my arms, and he flew up to the top of a nearby tree.

Shortly after that, he flew away the length of the cliffs and disappeared. I guess he just wanted to make sure I understood that this was his territory. Several hikers walked past me over the next hour or so, and I asked them if they had seen him, but none had. I was left a little unsettled by the experience, to have caused such drama just by sitting there. Usually when painting plein air, critters either ignore me or they come right up to me. I must have posed some kind of threat. It certainly made for an unforgettable experience!

Bird image from http://www.slostateparks.com/nature/birds/american_kestrel.asp