Vinalhaven Maine Artist Tour

Overview

This departure is limited to a maximum of twelve participants. We always welcome tour companions who are not artists. The trip’s leisurely pace will provide ample opportunity to wander around town and enjoy time with the locals that call this island home. Maine is such a truly special place. Although Vinalhaven is not your characteristic Maine destination, it provides a wonderful location for an artistic workshop, without the typical New England tourism. As long...

Overview

This departure is limited to a maximum of twelve participants. We always welcome tour companions who are not artists. The trip’s leisurely pace will provide ample opportunity to wander around town and enjoy time with the locals that call this island home. Maine is such a truly special place. Although Vinalhaven is not your characteristic Maine destination, it provides a wonderful location for an artistic workshop, without the typical New England tourism. As long as the light is good, you will keep busy working in your art, mid-day take a lunch break in town or perhaps a picnic lunch, then on to your next adventure. The days are long, so we try to give you some time to catch your breath, review your work, and get ready for the next location. Keep in mind that the Maine coast weather forces us to be flexible, but not to worry, there are plenty of scenes to capture right from your accommodations. There is also a lovely art gallery to explore.

There is wireless internet at your accommodations. Individuals can pay for parking fee at the Rockland Ferry parking lot along with fee for walking on the ferry. We will notify you if there are other participants living in your area, so you can carpool to Rockland.

In this artistic workshop students will paint in the open air of Vinalhaven, Maine. Each day we will look as Corot did, to interpret the soft color-palettes. The hazy landscape paintings and poetic scenes of Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot helped define plein air painting today. Like Corot we will seek to see and express the dreamlike quality of the color and light, while staying true to our “first impression” to capture the quiet dignity of the natural world.

Kathleen Jacobs and About this Class

In this class students will start with intuitive sketches of the natural hills, trees and foliage of the landscape. Students look carefully to make pencil compositional studies to settle into the view of such a special place. Working in any painting medium, students will make small intimate paintings in one sitting. Like Corot, students will look to investigate composition, using form, shape, line, and color while working in nature. Emphasis will be placed on capturing the feeling of the landscape, without over analysis. We will use the historic color paint palette of Corot to express emotion.

Kathleen Jacobs will provide individualized instruction during plein air excursions, demonstrations, discussions, and presentations that will provide the format for an intensive exciting learning experience. Working small, participants will work to create work with a spirit of place. Her teaching emphasizes looking at the landscape and to understand the formal elements of painting, shape, color, space, form while responding to the grace, order and beauty that is in front of you. There will be ample opportunity to discuss each other’s work and to discuss other international painters throughout history to enrich your experience.

For over 27 years, Kathleen Jacobs has painted and revered the natural world in her work. Her painting career changed when she found herself standing transfixed before The Arch of Constantine and the Forum, Rome (by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot). Through his choice of close tonal pigments, smoothly painted and thinly applied brushstrokes, Corot was able to create a composition that conveys beauty, impressive strength, and serenity. She recognized a balanced, orderly composition extracted from the landscape.

Like Corot, Kathleen’s work evokes her reverence for the natural landscape and has been exhibited alongside the landscape paintings of contemporary renowned artists Wolf Kahn, Richard Yarde, Lois Dodd, Stuart Shils, amongst others. Her work is collected nationally and internationally. She is a member of the Mel Carr Gallery, Essex, CT, Conservation Gallery in Truro, MA, and for 25 years at the Kendall Gallery in Wellfleet, MA. She teaches painting and drawing around the country and was the founder of the Blueway Art Alliance, a non-profit arts organization that collaborated with other arts organizations to promote emerging and established artists. She earned her BFA in Painting and Art History from the University of MA and her MFA in Visual Arts, Critical Theory and Painting from Lesley University College of Art and Design in Cambridge, MA. Kathleen is the recipient of the Chancellor’s Award and was given a grant to study abroad at the La Napoule Art Foundation in France. Formerly the Director of Art Education at the Currier Museum of Art, she now teaches painting and drawing for various art educational institutions. She lives with her family and works out of her art studio at her organic blueberry farm, in central New Hampshire. More information at www.kathleendjacobs.com

Fitness and Health
Walks and hikes can be on rough terrain and up to a couple miles in length. Trails can be uneven, slippery. You need to be able to climb uphill or over rocks. All participants need to be agile and able to manage their own gear and luggage in and out of the vehicle. Anyone who is reasonably fit should be able to take part in most of the activities. If you have any special needs or any physical condition that you feel might prevent you from fully participating, please contact Strabo Tours with your concerns (607-756-8676).