Art Shows-Lighthouse

Yesterday was the Mill Creek Art in the Park Show here in So. Portland, Maine. I only sold one painting and was a bit in the dumps about it until my son and his wife showed up with some friends and we decided to celebrate anyway and went out for lobsters and clams and much beer, wine and merriment. So I postponed cutting my ear off for another time.
Here are a couple of recent paintings involving the Portland Headlight, one of the most photographed and painted lighthouses in the world. I try to do things with it that make my representations of it different from most.


Artists at Portland Head
11 X 14 Oil on Canvas
I came upon these two on a sunny July afternoon almost in the shadow of the lighthouse, but I was struck by their gestures that seemed to indicate they were painting two different things, however looming the lighthouse was above them. I love contradictions like this so I took a quick photo and back at the studios practiced drawing the gestures until I got them right. This got a lot of notice at the show, but I still own the painting!



View of Portland Headlight from the South
14 X 18 Oil on Canvas panel
The same day, I traversed the great span of field to the south of the lighthouse to seek out this view which makes it as a subject as minimal as the above is maximal. I used aerial and hints of linear perspective to emphasize distance. I was going to make more of the clover in the field and even tried adding a couple on a blanket, but decided that they lessened the effect. Instead I added tiny figures off in the distance to the right. So in these two cases, I tried a different treatment of the lighthouse, large as a non-subject and small as a subject. I still own this painting, too. I guess not many visitors to this place like to get so far away. Why don't they understand?