We spent the last week vacationing with family in Wolfeboro, NH, mostly on Lake Wentworth. It was a great time – especially for Colin who spent hours and hours at the beach with his cousins. I didn’t bring my typical acrylic painting setup since it is pretty big and the car was completely packed. But I did bring a hot pressed watercolor block along with a travel kit of gouache paints. I’ve used this setup before on vacations – in NH, and also in London – and really enjoy the ability to still paint while traveling.
I was able to get six quick paintings done! As usual on a trip like this, when I haven’t painted in gouache recently, it took a few attempts to get warmed up, and so the last of the trip ended up being my favorite.
The first one was of some wetlands off the bike trail. Gouache paint tends to dry much darker than it looks when mixing, so bottom of this ended up darker than I meant, but I think a cool overall effect.
Next was a sketch of the dock at Kiki’s. There was a decent amount of wild fire smoke the first few days, so I tried to capture the whiteness of everything, with the umbrella poles in stark contrast.
One evening I went out and parked on the bike trail and did this painting of some wetland areas. It got dark fast, so I didn’t get as much finished as I wanted, but it has some aspects I really like – such as the foreground of the bike path / train rails.
Another view down the shore at Kiki’s – maybe the least successful of the bunch. The far shore just isn’t very convincing and the clashing colors of various objects on the shore don’t read well.
One of my two favorites. This is Albee Beach, painted while the kids were playing in the water. I really took my time with this since we had a nice spot to just sit in the shade.
The second one from Albee Beach here. A little less time spend on this once since we had to leave to get dinner started, but I think still successful at capturing the light of the afternoon.
It was a great vacation and I’m thankful to have gotten some time to paint along with all the great family memories made. Gouache kit is now packed away back in the studio, ready for the next trip.