This year there were a few guys that I had not painted with before. Always nice to make new friends.
The cast of characters, besides myself, was: Paul Schulenberg, Jerome Greene, Ignat Ignatov, Peter Kalill, Colin Page, Logan Hagege, Jeremy Lipking, Eric Merrell, Ernesto Nemesio, Jeff Bonasia, Marc Hanson, Dan Corey, Rick Casali, Stapleton Kearns, Ian Factor, James Coe, and Michael Klein. Some were there for the full two weeks, others could only stay for part of the trip.
We had a blast. Lots of painting, laughing and talking shop. On the rainy days ( and there were a few) we had access to a great empty space for painting the nude model. That is something I had not done since my RISD days. Some of these guys paint the figure all the time, so I was at the bottom of the ladder on this one. It was a good chance to practice though and I picked up a few pointers. I won't be showing those here and most of them were wiped off and painted over.
I think one of my favorite parts of the trip this year though was hanging out at night in a private secret location. It was dark and funky and looked like a pirate ship in there and often full of pirate type guys. We prepared many of our nightly meals in there and continued into the night with revelry, some guitar and banjo playing, usually accompanied by portrait painting sessions with some local pirate types or between ourselves, taking turns posing. I'm more of a landscape painter than head and shoulder portrait painter, but I kept at it and by the end of the trip I could see a big improvement. I got some real helpful tips from Ignat Ignatov and some of the other guys.
One of the late night portrait sessions on the Pirate Ship around the end of the first week.
Yes, that was the only lighting we had to work with, and sometimes we had to settle for a dark corner to paint in.
On the last night of the trip, with just a few of us left we decided to do a marathon Pirate portrait session with each of the willing taking turns posing for a timed 40 minutes while the others painted him. Then we switched fast and painted the next guy for 40.
We started at 10:30 pm with 7 painters and ended around 2:30 with 5 left standing. I painted 4 and sat for my turn. Here is my effort from the night. A 20x16" panel divided into 4 parts. Not bad for me and with a time limit of 40 min. I think this will be one of my pieces for the Cape Cod Museum of Art show in Feb.
To me, it represents a lot of what we had going on this year.
40 minute marathon poses
20x16" oil on linen, Frank Gardner © 2010
$1,800. Framed. Available through Addison Art Gallery
Clockwise from top left: Ian Factor, Colin Page, Logan Hagege, Stapleton Kearns.
There will be a big show of our paintings from this trip at Addison Art Gallery and at the Cape Cod Museum of Art this Feb.
This year we also had a fresh paint show at Addison, with a few pieces from most of us. Below are the 4 paintings that I framed up for the show.
"Provincetown Street" 10x8" oil on linen, Frank Gardner © 2010
$780. Framed. Available at Addison Art Gallery
"Eastern-rig" 6x8" oil on board, Frank Gardner © 2010
SOLD
"Bradford Street" 8x10" oil on linen, Frank Gardner © 2010
$780. Framed. Available at Addison Art Gallery
"First House" 8x10" oil on linen, Frank Gardner © 2010
$780. Framed. Available at Addison Art Gallery
