Bar Harbor won’t look like this for long. There was a bulldozer parked just behind me as I made the drawings and photos that resulted in this piece. Soon the “Ship Shop” will be knocked apart and put back together as something shiny and, if the current designer has his way, rather Tudor-ish. I have no idea why “half-timbered” would be one’s choice of motif for a Downeast Maine fishing community. For one thing, we have fog, rain, sleet and all manner of cold moisture for most of the year; if the stucco was really structural it would be crumbled on its foundations by now. Perhaps the new construction will be fallen in and worn out enough to be fodder for my drawings in another 50 years or so – perhaps I’ll live long enough to find out.

Finally off the easel: pastel, 18″ x 24″, a view down one of the many roads to the working waterfront in Southwest Harbor.

Road to the Harbor

There are still many small houses here, even with the water so close at hand. It was a quiet Saturday afternoon, and along with a couple walking their dogs and distant flocks of gulls I saw a winter hare, a fox and a racoon.

Stonington Dock, July

We have 10″ of new snow, heavy and wet and bending the spruce tree branches to the ground. This drawing is from a hot late summer afternoon in Stonington harbor that smelled like seaweed and motor oil and gave me a sunburn right through my SPF50 and a straw hat.  Welcome to Maine. . .