Postcards in and “Peter Batchelder: Summer Places” show coming up fast! Reception Saturday July 20, 6-8 pm for new work at Left Bank Gallery on Commercial St in Wellfleet. Hope to see you there!
Took a drive last fall to the bayside “elbow” of the Cape, to Paines Creek Beach in Brewster, where the marshes that prevail in that area extend out from land and connect to the bay. This scene caught my eye, partly for the simplicity, but also for the mystery of the jeep road that seemed to extend out to the middle of the marsh, and then suddenly stop.
I was recently driving down 6A, on the way back from Wellfleet to Dennisport, and caught a glimpse of an expanse of marsh and salt ponds in the distance. On the very distant shore of the farthest pond were two old boathouses, side-by-side, perched on the water’s edge. I suspect these are on some remote piece of private property and unreachable, but from the breakdown lane, I was able to grab a quick, grainy reference shot. After some refinement through a quick pencil sketch, a composition was completed and ready to paint. “Salt Pond Bay” 20 x 20.
I’ve been to California only once, a short visit to the Sonoma and Napa regions. Aside from the obvious beauty of this part of the country, the hills and valleys of wine country seemed to have a soft, warm, haziness that cast the scenery in a golden light. Many years later, I found a reference to a scene from this area, and attempted to capture the light I remembered. “Golden Light” 36 x 36.
The next town over from ours, Mont Vernon, sits at the top of a hill, accessed via Route 13, which ascends steeply straight up for about a mile from the valley below. On the way up, several farms line either side of the road, with this one tucked into one of the foothills. On a recent trip back from Lake Sunapee, the back-road route I take brings me down the hill from town, and right past this farm, which on that day, was a blast of Spring green. Taking some liberty with color and composition (there was another outbuilding in the foreground, which I chose to edit out), the result…”Spring Hill” 48 x 48.
As a teenager living on the Cape, my High School bus wound its way through the country lanes of Sesuit and Quivett Necks. On the Quivett portion of the ride, we passed this place every day. Tucked down a dirt drive, it sits on the edge of a salt marsh that extends to Cape Cod Bay. It was, to me, always a quintessential summer house, on a beautiful piece of Cape Cod. Many years later, painted partly from reference, and largely from memory…”Summerscape” 48 x 24
I came across this scene very recently, on a chilly Spring drive along the National Seashore. It was a pretty nondescript scene…but interesting in that this old shed should be standing randomly along the bluff, with no larger structure nearby to justify it being there. “Pamet Hollow” 20 x 20 o/c.
This piece was a great combination of an idea for a painting I’ve had, coupled with the inclusion of an element the buyers hoped to see in a work. The scene is somewhere in New Hampshire or Vermont, and has been painted before. But this piece also includes a bit of landscape near the buyers home in Concord, MA. The large oak to the right is in their backyard, and like in this piece, sits on the banks of the Assabet River. “Along the Assabet” 28 x 32.
A couple days of warm weather during this fairly drizzly New Hampshire Spring has me thinking, and hoping, for a rapid onset of summer! To nudge it along…”Dune Path” based on a favorite spot in West Dennis, Cape Cod.
This location has been painted several times…previous pieces were more literal depictions, while this one removes all vegetation to reveal the bay which, in reality, is a couple miles in the distance. While painting is mostly an additive process, I find it interesting to see what results if you remove things from the composition while adding elements to the painting.
