Closer to home

 

 

 

Of all the early artists who painted in the Adirondacks, most came to the area in their adulthood, loved the wilderness places and landscape enticements, and stayed on for a while and/or came back seasonally. 

 

I've come across only one so far who was born and raised there – maybe not quite "there" but in the foothills area of my little paper mill town; just 20 miles away, in fact, and 100 years before my time.  He was Levi Wells Prentice, a farm boy with little formal training whose works garnered notice only decades after his death.  I was so intrigued by this Nearby Unknown that I found a book about him on-line and, Dear Reader, I bought it.

 

 

As suggested in this cover painting and the selections here, Prentice had a distinctive style in both his still life paintings and his landscapes.  In many cases, they are hyper-realistic in a sense, with strong dark/light contrasts and fiddly attention to little shapes that he has painted more distinctly than the eye would see them in nature.

 

"Nature Staged" had little to offer about the man himself, and there's not much about him on-line, not even a photo.  I could find only a portrait of him painted by an unidentified artist.

 

Well, that was enough to play around with – and play I did, starting with some quick prototypes and then trying some printing, stamping, collage techniques.

 

 

None of this was the least satisfactory so I decided…what the heck.  I would try something I'd recently seen in its end stage at a gallery my friend L had whisked me to.  I placed two versions of Experimental Prentice on a plastic sheet in the back yard…

 

 …and set a big chunk of ice on top.  I expected that when I came back later that day, I'd find some magnificent swirling features – beyond Jackson Pollock's wildest dreams.

 

No such luck!  No magic transitions.  Not even a "Framed" version to show for this.  Time to move on to Prentice's landscape and my own.

 

From among his on-line landscapes, I was hopelessly smitten with his "Moose River, Adirondacks" -- for reasons that might be apparent to historians of this blog.

You've seen the Moose River before, where it joins the Black River at the long-ago hometown that marked me for life.

 

I paired Prentice's painting – which must have been done considerably upstream – with my recent photo of Palisade Creek, at the northern edge of the Capilano Watershed.  

 

 

I planned to mimic Prentice's style – with the characteristic outlining and details.  Determined to "hold the lights" – not get too dark, too soon (my mistake last time), I made a very tentative start.

 

 

I thought I was on top of things, but before long (actually, very long; several hours worth of long),  I heard myself saying, "What was I thinking??!?!?"

 

 

Was I really going to try delineating every branch and leaf in all that expanse of greenery?  Nope.  Not gonna do it.  Instead, I cropped away about 90 square inches, removing strips on either side of the creek.

 

 

Pressing on regardless, I finally dubbed this The Finale:-- "Palisade Creek, Capilano Watershed" (copyright 2023)

 

 

With all the Adirondack landscapes in my view this summer, I can't help but think of a young boy I once knew – fervent and accomplished angler of freshwater creeks and lakes from the age of 10.  I remember him in his mid-50s, delighted when I happened to say, "No fish has ever tasted as good as the rainbow trout you used to catch in the North Country."  He might well have fished these very spots along the Moose River.

 

Gone fishin' !!

 

 

That's what a lot of those 19^th/early 20^th century artists did in the Adirondacks, and at this midway point in the Empty Frame series, I'm beginning to get a feel for who the fishing buddies were.   The title image above is "The Angler," a painting of the artist Roswell Morse Shurtleff by his eminence Winslow Homer  – the god of 19^th century American painting.  The two were also painting and fishing pals with Homer Dodge Martin who we've met before.  (But who among us will ever remember these triple-barrelled names?!?)

 

Shurtleff was quite a handsome guy – and as his luck would have it, he provoked a convergence as I considered my next experiments. 

 

My friend L remembered that I'd once talked about my handmade charcoal, "curated" at our coastal cabin from almost anything the Curator could put his hands on – twigs from different varieties of trees and shrubs, charred over an outdoor fire in ingenious interlocking tin cans.  I still have an abundant supply, of which this is just half. (Maple, willow, alder, thimbleberry, grape)

 

Then, a book recommended by my friend M became available at the library:-- "Women Street Artists: 24 Contemporary Graffiti and Mural Artists from around the World" by Alessandra Mattanza.

 

 

The book's cover shows an enormous painting on the wall of a building – oh, what a temptation it was to paint something BIG on my disintegrating back fence that is destined for imminent replacement. 

 

Sanity set in, and I decided instead to do an oversized portrait of Shurtleff, using maple and willow charcoal.  In the blissful cool of one morning a few weeks ago, I set up outdoors against the fence – with no worries about inhaling the charcoal dust or having it mess things up as it fell to the ground.  Here's an early stage, the drawing on an odd-shaped canvas, about 36" high by 24" wide.

 

 

And here's the finished portrait:  "Framed:  Roswell Morse Shurtleff." 

 

He's actually pretty content with himself and the environment  He's been camping outside ever since, under the shelter of the porch overhang – even through two nights of rare showers.

 

Next up:-- From Shurtleff's many evocative paintings of eastern landscapes, I've chosen his "Early Autumn."

 

I thought I might twin this with a photo I took at Belcarra Park.

 

 

These woods along one of Belcarra's trails are unusually open – without the more common undergrowth of the West Coast rainforests.  I worked first with charcoal and then decided I needed a touch of colour, and it was time to crack into my old supply of gouache.

 

Thanks to the National Gallery, UK:--

"Gouache is a French term used to describe a type of watercolour paint. The word is derived from the Italian guazzo which literally means a watering place."

A rather nice resonance with this watery environment!  And here's the final version, "Summer Woods – Belcarra" – Empty Frame series, copyright 2023.

 

 

It's fascinating to me that whether at their easels or at streamside, these 19^th – early 20^th century guys might be wearing hats, "dress shirts," vests, even their ingenious bow-type ties.  Dressed for success at the fishing hole!