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"

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.

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. :)

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".

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.

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.

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.