Saturday, October 13, 2007

New Roadwork Paintings

Roadwork: Maintain Spacing, oil on panel, 10" x 10"

Rebecca's off on another painting trip. This art thing really cuts into her blogging time. She'll be back in a few days, but in the meantime, here's her three new Roadwork paintings.


Roadwork: Supervising, oil on panel, 10" x 10"



Roadwork: New Pavement Ahead, oil on panel, 10" x 10"

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Kayak Building Update

Nobody asks how I am any more.They ask "Is the kayak done yet?" So here is an update.

Bulkhead installed

I installed the bulkheads. This was by far the most difficult part of building the boat, not really difficult, just a hassle working in such a small space half upside down.


A friend checks out my sanding job.

Then there was the sanding. This should take up more than one sentence but what really is there to say. It feels like it goes on and on.

I borrowed a friends garage. Here is second or third coat of varnish.

Varnish on the deck. OK, I have to honest here, after all this work, and getting used to seeing the boat all scuffed up from sanding, I almost cried when I saw how pretty the first coat of varnish looked.




I did feel some anxiety drilling more holes on the boat. These are for the deck bungee
cords. I drilled the hatch tie downs at the same time.




It's getting there. This is the gasket to seal the hatches.



And on top of the car! It's not quite done yet, I still have to install the seat. I will paint the hull orange in another week or two after I try it out on the water.

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Adventure While Delivering Art

Pink Peapod, 20"x 16", oil on canvas


Stephen Taber with Yawl Boat , 16" x 20", oil on canvas


New Work! I've been having a hard time lately finding the time to do all things I have to get done, like deliver these two new paintings to the Camden Falls Gallery. So when my friend Valerie called to see if I could go out on her boat for the day I was really disappointed I couldn't go, unless she wanted to go to Camden??? She said she would go anywhere as long as there wasn't any fog because her GPS was being fixed. The weather report looked great.


Camden Harbor.

It took about an hour to get there. Camden was beautiful and sunny. I like going there because there are a lot of boats. Here is a photo of Mistress with a small boat tied under the bow. We dropped off the new paintings and found some really good food for lunch. A few clouds in the distance made us think it was time to head back. About ten minutes out of Camden Harbor we ran into this.....




Yup, that would be fog, really thick fog. Lucky we knew exactly where we were when we suddenly couldn't see where we were. Too bad about that GPS. Fog is very disorienting. Sounds seem to come from different places, it's wet, and kind of creepy, but mostly you just can't see. We managed to find the entrance to the thorofare between North Haven and Vinalhaven and right there we left the fog.


Leaving the fog, for now.

On the other side of the thorofare, however, it was completely foggy. If you don't know what it's like to enter a fog bank it looks about like this....





Schooner American Eagle about to enter the fog bank.


We didn't really want to go back into the fog and Valerie remembered she knew some people who lived on North Haven. We found the dock and wandered up to the house but nobody was there. We found someone working on one of buildings who told us the family had indeed left for the summer. We got permission from the caretaker to take shelter there for a while. From the big front porch of the old summer house we watched the fog close in, then swirl away, then come back. The weather was supposed to be getting worse: wind later, then rain into the next day. Just as we were going to walk into town to find some food we saw a break in the clouds and fog and made a run for back to Stonington.





And that was good, because we got back in time to watch The Simspons Movie at the Opera House that night. :)

Thursday, August 9, 2007

Maine Boats, Homes & Harbors Show


Once again, this is Michael with an update. Rebecca is in Rockland at the Maine Boats, Homes & Harbors Show, which runs Friday through Sunday.

The painting above is one of her new paintings she'll be showing there. It's called Susan Traci, Bow Reflection II, and measures 58" by 32".


Friday, July 20, 2007

Gone Painting


Rebecca is off on a painting excursion and promises to post a new blog this weekend. She'll be back with several new paintings, which we'll post here or on her website.


Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Hatches and Clamps

My anxiety over cutting the hatches out began while I was reading the instruction booklet, before I even started building the boat. Our jig saw is rather old and vibrates. The guy at the large off-island hardware store tried to talk me into buying a different saw blade than is recommended in the instruction manual. I borrowed other saws and practiced on bits of plywood. Finally I settled on the instruction manual's recommendation to hold a saw blade in a vice grip and hand cut it out. I used a scroll saw blade instead as it cut easier.



I waited to fill the shear seam from the inside until the hatches were cut so I would have better access.

Attaching the cockpit coaming.

Smaller clamps are recommended.
And the hatch spacers.

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

The incredible shrinking boatshop


The gallery is open, and it's still a boat building shop! I was supposed to relocate after the student art show, but it's still fairly quiet here in town and I don't have anywhere convenient to go. But the boat's space is very small. And I can't make dust.


Boat shop in a box.

Kayak draped

I made my first mistake on the boat at this point. I draped the cloth over the boat to measure it, then I thought it was fitting over it so nicely I would I leave it and start cutting. After I started cutting I remembered I was only measuring and there is a special way the cloth has to be laid out and cut so there will be enough to do the other end. Darn. Then I was looking at patching three or four pieces together. I've read on other coho builders websites that they almost all order extra cloth so they don't have a seam at all. Four seams on the only part of the boat that isn't going to be painted? Lucky I live in a town with a lot of boats. I called around and the auto parts store, the hardware store, and the boat building shop all had fiberglass. The only problem is that all the boats around here are bigger and all the fiberglass cloth was too heavy. So I lost a couple of days driving around checking the fiberglass and then having it shipped from the marine store. The photo above is the new one piece cloth.

Friends and visitors stop by to check my progress.

The fiberglass is saturated with epoxy.

Monday, May 14, 2007

From Boatshop to Gallery

Taping the deck to the hull, again.

Back home, to the kayak
My boatshop time is running out. Spring is here and we need the gallery back. For a couple of years now we host the Deer Isle - Stonington High School student art show. It's a good way for the community to see what the students are up to in their art class and nice for the students to see their work in a gallery setting. It's a good time for us to paint the walls and rehang the gallery with new work for the season. ( The art teacher does most of the work, hanging the show, and keeping the gallery open.) But it means I have to move the boat out for a few days. I really wanted to get the deck fiberglassed before moving it, so it would be stronger, but had to settle on getting the deck attached.

In the top photo I am taping the deck to hull. This is it, if I don't get it lined up correctly, I'll have a crooked boat. Luckly, I spent a long time getting it lined up the first time I taped the deck to the hull, when I epoxyed the deck, so it wasn't too difficult this time. Just few extra push pins and clamps this time.


Then I epoxy the seam, later filling any gaps.

Now it's really a kayak.


Time to move out. Removing the cradle.

I have to admit there was something a little sad about taking the table apart. I had grown fond of the old crate table, splinters and all. The boat is far enough along that I should be able to finish the rest on saw horses. I have to say that although the boat is taking longer than I thought, it has been very enjoyable.

The boatshop dissapeared for a few days and my studio has moved back home. Within several hours it was a gallery again.

Deer Isle - Stonington High School Art Show Opening Reception

Sunday, May 13, 2007

This Old Shack

B movie?

This isn't a still from a bad movie but a shot of our week "vacation". This is me trying to break up some concrete. We spent almost a week in New Hampshire working on this little shack. The place is beautiful, we spent time with my parents and a friend, but the weather was so windy and cool it was hard to be outside. I did get a couple of paintings done. And the cat had a blast playing outside.


We replaced the old mossy roof. We, being Michael and my dad; I was wheelbarrow girl, carting off the shingles and going on hardware store and donut runs.


The new roof.


It looks like we will have to replace the sill, and more. But that will have to wait until the fall.

So you may be wondering what this construction project has to do with "painting, art, boats, and living on the coast of Maine" but it does indirectly. This little shack will be a sort of studio/work/storage area. It is tiny, but can get paint on the floor...... and it needs us.


The day we left we had beautiful weather. Here is my mom in her Chesapeake Light Craft Mill Creek that my dad build for her a few years ago.

links for this blog
CLC Mill Creek

Saturday, May 12, 2007

Fiberglass inside of hull

We've been away for a week but here are a few photos of the boat before we left.

The inside of the hull is fiberglassed using two pieces of cloth. The cloth starts a couple of inches below the edge of the hull. The green and blue in the photo is tape that holds it in place until I am ready to saturate the cloth with epoxy.


The excess cloth from one end is used on the other.


I was worried that the cloth wouldn't fit and I would have to patch some pieces together, but it worked out perfectly, with less than an inch to spare.

I somehow forgot to take photos of saturating the cloth with epoxy (could be because I had my hands full of epoxy) but it looks about the same as the other parts of the boat that have been fiberglassed. I am getting better at this fiberglassing by now, and didn't put on a saturation coat of epoxy first. I was running out of time and I seem to have the problem of putting too much epoxy on rather than too little.

Most of the fiberglassed areas on the boat have a couple of fill coats over the fiberglass cloth. The inside of the boat doesn't need it, but I put an extra coat on the area where my feet will be so it's not as rough. But I do wonder if the roughness of the cloth will be a problem to clean or be rough on items stored in the boat.

Friday, April 27, 2007

Fillet in the bow

Busy studio, messy too!

The studio is feeling a bit small as I am trying to get this painting finished while working on two boats. The one in the front here is a nutshell pram my dad and I built four years ago. I realized when we moved to Stonington, that if I wanted to do paintings of boats, I needed to have a boat to get out into the harbor to see them. It's been a couple of years and a few knocks around the dinghy dock and is now time for new varnish and paint.

The kayak
I removed the temporary frames from the hull. I was wishing I had used a lot less hot glue to attach them when I realized that epoxy had come through the wire holes and was holding them in place too. It took quite a while to get those frames out of there, still could have used a lot less hot glue. Then I cleaned up the inside of the hull, removing blobs of epoxy that came through the wire holes (next time should tape them up), rough wood, and gummy hot glue.

Fillet in bow

Then I filled any wire holes that didn't get filled with epoxy and put a little in the seams so the fiberglass will lay flat. I also added the fillet on the keel in the bow and stern. This makes the ends stronger and smoother for the fiberglass cloth to lie on. And put a couple of layers of fiberglass strips over the bow seam to reinforce it. Today I will fiberglass the interior on the hull.

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Pots in progress, kayak too

New pots

Today I had my clay class with Frank Pitcher. Here are a few pots I am working on. These are dry but not fired yet. They are made on the wheel then cut, shaped, and grated.

Here's Frank (with his cups in front) talking with Maureen.


Spring is here. You can tell, not by the weather, but how busy everyone has gotten. Summer is our busy season in coastal Maine, whether your work is tourist based, fishing, construction, whatever. Most meetings aren't held in the summer, the potluck dinners end, adult ed classes and dancing lessons are all on hold while people concentrate on their work and businesses, gardens, and visitors. So spring is preparation for summer, the boats are painted, the brochures go to the printer, the plans for summer festivals and events are finalized. Monday I worked on a t-shirt layout, poster design, had a Lupine Festival meeting, Chamber of Commerce meeting (only went to half of that one), and Deer Isle Art Association dinner meeting. I also varnished my nutshell pram, worked on the kayak, and managed to get a bit of painting in too. Why didn't I have time to write my blog?

Even though I have a tight time frame for getting the kayak done, I like the quiet directed work that it takes to put the boat together. There are some parts that just can't be rushed. The kayak continues....



The deck is remove from the hull and turned over for reinforcement. I add three layers of fiberglass tape to the seams of the butt blocks.


A layer of fiberglass will be laid down over the recessed deck to give it strength. First I fill in any area that might keep the fiberglass cloth from lying flat or might trap air.


Fiberglass tape is used the strengthen each seam. Then a layer of epoxy is used to coat the whole underside of the deck. Then another layer.