Watercolor Workshop - Detailed Itinerary
Sunday, 8/10: Between 4pm and 6pm you and your fellow workshoppers arrive and check in. After settling in to your room, join us at 7pm for a meet-and-greet during an informal dinner and to receive a brief orientation to the week ahead.
Monday, 8/11: Breakfast is served between 8 and 9am. At 10am Catinka comes to Le Vatout for a day of instruction, inside and out. Depending on the group’s interests, requests, and ability levels, you may:
- practice some basic watercolor techniques such as painting graded and variegated washes
- do some quick painted color sketch variations of a landscape scene
- create simple scenes in which we practice 'negative' painting over the wash samples
- brainstorm ways to create texture.
Lunch will be served out in Le Vatout’s romantic garden where you will also learn to make drawings and watercolor sketches from different viewpoints. This may be a good time to take reference photos as well. After Catinka leaves (around 3pm), you may want to keep working or explore the many artist galleries Waldoboro has to offer. We especially recommend The Roberta Goschke Gallery and Studio a couple of miles down the road from Le Vatout, Holly Marie Haining's SeaWitch Studio, 5 minutes East on Friendship Road, the Bechler Studios on Backcove Road (another 10 minutes from there), and of course the Tidemark Gallery in “downtown” Waldoboro. For Dinner we suggest Moody’s Diner, a Midcoast landmark up on Rt.1, or our local pub, The Narrows Tavern, which also features live music every night.
Tuesday, 8/12: Breakfast is served between 8 and 9am. Then, you’ll get to visit Catinka’s studio at the Lincoln Street Art Center in nearby Rockland for her class "Let's paint a Maine landscape with lupine in it!" It runs from 10am-noon and offers a delightful opportunity to revel in blues and purples. Watch the color dance off the brush as it makes calligraphic strokes to capture the sense of a field of flowers and leave with at least one finished painting and a proud smile.
Afterwards, stroll down Rockland’s Main Street for a leisurely lunch at one of the many restaurants here. There’s Brass Compass (Maine fare and homemade everything), The Atlantic Baking Co. (homemade breads, sandwiches, quiches, and salads), the famed Rockland Café where the locals eat (their fishcakes are yum!), plus Suzuki’s Sushi Bar, Lily Bistro, Sunfire (So-Cal) Mexican Grill, and many, many more.
Eat up – you’ll need your strength because at 2pm you’ll meet at the Farnsworth Museum with Le Vatout’s own Linda Mahoney – who has an MFA from RSDI as well as an MA in art history – for your personally guided tour with particular emphasis on Wyeth and Homer water colors. And after that Rockland’s galleries beckon, lots of them, all in walking distance from the Farnsworth: From the bold, energetic work of Eric Hopkins on Winter Street to Main Street’s Lyn Snow whose lyrical water color botanicals will delight you. Dowling Walsh, also on Main Street, is a beautiful gallery which has some original Wyeth’s as well as work by other well known artists. Harbor Square Gallery on the corner of Museum and Main welcomes you to explore three floors of Fine Art and Contemporary American Craft and boasts a beautiful rooftop sculpture garden.
Finally, we suggest you take the short drive to South Rockland and experience dinner at Primo’s. It’s not inexpensive, but the food’s sublime and the desserts out of this world.
Wednesday, 8/13: Today breakfast is served at 8am so you can leave around 8:30 to drive to Port Clyde for your day on Monhegan Island. On the way – it’s just a 45 minute drive – we suggest you take the short detour to Marshall Point to visit the lighthouse (which you will paint the next day). Stroll around, take some pictures, but remember at 10:30 am the boats leaves from Port Clyde to carry you to Monhegan, “the island that time forgot”. It is undoubtedly the most famous island in Maine, thanks in large measure to the art of George Bellows, Edward Hopper, Rockwell Kent, Jamie Wyeth, and many others who have been drawn to paint its dramatic cliffs—the highest on the New England coast. There are no roads or cars and most of it is a nature preserve with 17 miles of trails, breathtaking walks and plenty of vistas you’ll want to sketch or capture with your camera. For those of you less inclined to clamber, there’s an artists' colony, a museum, a swimming beach (for hardy souls who like cold ocean water), and yet another lighthouse to make this a more than memorable trip. We provide a brown bag lunch for you and suggest you treat yourself to a lobster dinner at the Dip Net upon your return to Port Clyde.
Thursday, 8/14: Breakfast is served between 8 and 9am. Then, you’ll return to Catinka’s studio at the Lincoln Street Art Center in nearby Rockland for her class ""Let's draw and paint a Maine lighthouse - Marshall Pt. Light!” which runs from 10am-noon. You will draw along with her, working step-by-step to create a tonal pencil drawing of the lighthouse scene. This exercise in abstraction will give you a trial run in understanding the picture and to experience “seeing” the perspective of the lighthouse structure. It is followed by a “direct” painting, step-by-step without any underdrawing and again you will leave with a finished painting in your hands.
Afterwards, we suggest you explore the bustling village of Camden (just 15 minutes north from Rockland). Start with lunch at the Camden Deli with its spectacular sights of Camden harbor, hike or drive up to Mount Battie to experience the view that so inspired Edna St. Vincent Millay, or enjoy a two-hour sailing trip aboard the Windjammer Surprise which departs daily at 12:30 or 3 pm. Or try to make time for Rockport, another famed art colony on Midcoast Maine (just 5 minutes South of Camden) and check out The Center for Maine Contemporary Art (Open ‘til 5pm). For fifty years the CMCA has been at the heart of contemporary Maine art, featuring many of Maine's best artists—from emerging artists not seen elsewhere, to the acknowledged masters of our day.
No matter how much you fill up on art and nature, try to be back home by 7pm for your goodbye dinner served at Le Vatout.
Friday, 8/15: Breakfast is served between 8 and 9am. After breakfast take a last stroll through the garden and say good-bye to your new friends. Check-out is by 11am, but don’t be sad: you will take home new skills, plenty of memories and two beautiful watercolors of your own.
