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!

 

Dreaming of summers long ago

 

 

Ah, those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer!  I press on with my summer camp project, maybe at a dreamier pace than I began with.  Sorting through old studio boxes, I came across a small 8" x 10" sketch I'd made years ago of a favourite spot we used to visit along the Squamish River.  

 

 

Back then, I had repeatedly tried to make a larger painting but was constantly stymied.  Still, this small study brings back so many memories of our cabin days in Upper Squamish.  Our own photos are in different boxes, but here's one from a hikers' website, from a slightly different vantage point.

 

Looking through dozens of on-line images of late 19th-early 20th century Adirondack paintings, I came across this one.  Titled "A Mountain River", it made a sure match with my small study for the next in my Empty Frame series.

 

The artist, John Lee Fitch, proved elusive.  I found only scant biographical material that said he was a painting pal of Winslow Homer and Homer D. Martin, the latter previously framed in my series kick-off.  I looked high and low for a photo of Fitch, or even a portrait painting by another artist – but no such luck.

 

Finally, I decided to "do an Adelard"  – to seek out photos of Fitch family members, hoping to find a model that might suggest how he looked.  These, too, were in little evidence, but then along came a handsome mid-20^th century Broadway star, Stephen Douglass Fitch – stage name, Stephen Douglass.

 

 

And then, the light dawned.  I knew this celebrity in my childhood!  Well, "knew" is perhaps too strong a term.   In the midst of his early career success, about 1951, Douglass was taking his own Adirondack summer vacation, staying for a while with his sister's family in our little town.  Her sons were my pals up the street, one of whom was even named for "Uncle Steve."  We watched the Broadway star from a respectful distance as he energetically mowed the family's lawn, singing at the top of his voice, "Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do."  And now I've found him on YouTube!!

 

I'd already decided that my next get-acquainted art medium would be watercolour and watercolour markers in the wild spirit of "Portrait Revolution."  Whether or not Uncle Steve was related to John Lee Fitch (one family was from Ohio, the other from Connecticut), he was chosen to play the lead role!  He was an actor.   He could handle this drama.

 

I rolled up my sleeves, carefully filled the watercolour "pens" and set to work.

 

 

Oh, no.  The outcome was SO bad, I didn't even stop to take a photo.  I painted most of it out and grabbed some intensely coloured oil pastels (they're like luscious crayons).

 

Did this help??

 

 

Cue the chorus:  NO!  I could almost hear Stephen Douglass saying, "WHEN is my regular makeup artist coming back from vacation??!"

 

Such a good-looking guy didn't deserve that – so just for old times' sake, I did a simple straight-forward "capture" with only two markers, one black and one white, on grey paper.  Here he is:  "Framed:  Stephen Douglass."

 

 

Then I shifted gears for a pencil sketch of the proposed landscape.

 

Here's a preliminary paint job, done two days later, in which I'm already making corrections -- which is okay; it's a process.

 

 

Another day or two more, and I realized I'd made a huge mistake – starting too dark.   It's a truism for most kinds of paint that it's easier to darken the lights than to lighten the darks.   

 

The dark/light shades in this landscape, as well as the range of blues and greens, would make a whole semester's study in Landscape 101.

 

So….here we are, the point at which I've declared, "I can't make this any better than it is, and I might make it worse."   Title:  "Mt. Ashlu from Anderson Beach," Empty Frame Series, copyright 2023.   For a mountaineer's view of the high peaks of Mt. Ashlu, see here.

 

 

There's always something to be learned.  My hassles with this current attempt demonstrated why I still have only a small study to show for this stretch along the Squamish River.  Well, as many have said, The Journey is the Destination.  Curiously enough, I found a reminder of this good counsel in the newspaper scrap I'd been using when I first set up the watercolour markers.  Just read it upside-down.

 

 

So – onward!  And while my beat-up gardening shoes aren't suitable for trekking either the Adirondacks or the Tantalus Range, my brand-new shoelaces bring a smile to my face.  Don't you love the colour combo?!?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Busting Out of the Frame

 

 

Continuing the Empty Frame Series, we're hooking up in this post with Thomas Worthington ("Worth") Whittredge.  He's another of those 19^th century American artists who lived out the stereotypical story of the rural, semi-educated kid who was driven to draw and paint and managed to do so despite family discouragement.  And paint he did – becoming a pal of Sanford Gifford, who kicked off this series, and earning fame in East Coast artists' circles.

 

How could I resist choosing this framed photo as the basis for my Worth Whittredge portrait?

 

 

Continuing my exploration of various artists' materials, I chose to work with fine-tipped art markers, as did this artist in "Portrait Revolution."

 

 I set to work, realizing I'd need to carefully scale up this framed portrait.

 

On the slick paper I'd intended just for a draft, these markers were a tricky medium – slick on the one hand, indelible on the other, and the merest accidental touch-down would leave a definite mark.  I sensed that "Worth" was finding it all a little boring, too, as he tried to refrain from squirming.

 

Here's the final portrait, "Framed (For the most part) – Worthington Whittredge".

 

 

Now, on to the Whittredge painting I selected – "The Woods", a close view quite unlike his better known expansive landscapes.

 

 

From my photo files, I found a somewhat comparable scene, taken along a trail in the woodlands just south of Deep Cove.

 

 

I'd been browsing through some of my cherished art books and decided that for summer camp fun, I'd work in a semi-abstract style reminiscent of one of my original heroes in paint, 20^th century American artist and teacher Edward Betts.

 

As I looked at the 1982 inscription inside the cover, I remembered feeling a pang then – that if I'd stayed in Illinois (though dying to bust out of it at the age of 18), I might have had him as a teacher.  He also had a great connection to Maine, and his book is full of his paintings and drawings (and other artists') of rocky shorelines and granite quarries.

 

I made a start and found it uninspiring.

 

 

Searching on-line, I came across this more relevant example of Betts' work – just some of it shown in part of  a frame!!  Was it meant to be?

 

 

Using acrylic medium, I papered over the Bad Betts with swirling rice paper.   I then cut up an old membership card to use, instead of a brush, to pull small puddles of paint across the heavily textured surface.

 

 

Here's the finale:  "Catching the Moonlight on Deep Cove Trail" – Empty Frame Series, copyright 2023.

 

 

I've always kept in mind the gist of Betts' answer to the question, "How do you know when a painting is finished?"  He wrote:

 

(It is important that you) "keep yourself attuned to what is happening on the painting surface.  You must always be ready to act in answer to what arises there, to recognize and grasp those elements that suggest the route to order and structure in the painting.  Once the control image has been found, the act of painting becomes more purposeful.  Finally, a point is reached when you find yourself fussing over unimportant little things, when you have said all you wanted to say, when nothing can be added or subtracted without upsetting the picture's overall organization.  At that point, your painting is finished."