A mindful trip back to my “roots” in northern rural Maine….

The love and the annoyance of painting outdoors began in my childhood. After receiving my first box of 24 pastels at the age of 12 in 1963, I was ready to follow in the footsteps of the masters that I had seen in books that my mother bought for me. As I think about this now,  I may have been the only kid in Fort Fairfield who would set up an easel on the front lawn in northern Maine to capture the front view of her home.

I had decided that I was an artist at age 6. This will be the subject for another day – right now,  I want to tell you about my first venture with my new pastels. In the rural area that we lived, there were no art supply stores. The nearest opportunity was in Bangor, Maine but the biggest store was in Lewiston – a two and a half hour drive south from my hometown. God bless my mother.  The sky was the limit when we shopped at that store.

Kathleen Bishop drove a 1959 white Cadillac with a gray roof. We piled a tall easel, oil paints, canvases, large wooden palette, large paper pad, brushes, drawing tools and that favored box of Grumbacher soft pastels in that “boat of a car.” Pastels were new to me and probably many adult artists as well…I was fascinated with the soft texture of the half sticks and the wide array of colors.  I couldn’t wait to get home to try them on the paper we purchased. (Sadly, the supplies were not the quality that we have today in 2014, but they were the BEST we could get back then.)

My mom was proud of her flowers that she cared for in a garden as well as those surrounding our homestead that her parents bought in 1926. When my dad acquired the farm (circa 1945), he reduced the size of the New England style home by cutting off the servant quarters which was attached to main house with a separate entrance on the left and the wrap around front porch with columns which gave it a stately appearance; albeit, old-fashioned. Dad modernized the side porch by enclosing it with seventeen windows for he was a carpenter as well as a potato farmer. My mom changed the paint color from white to pinkish-beige to my father’s chagrin a few years later. It was my pleasure and duty to reproduce on paper in pastels what we all were so proud of – a place called “home.”

The first thing I learned in the experience with pastels in the elements was patience.  Regardless of buzzing bees, occasional flies and the heat of the noon day sun,  I would render the scene as best I could with my eyes as guides and my trusty straight edge for accuracy. I found a shady spot under one of the trees next to the road to set up my easel and I sat in a lawn chair for comfort. The pastels rested in a box on my lap. Using my fingers to blend the soft pastels and the charcoal pencils for linear designs,  I completed the 12″ x 18″ pastel drawing in one sitting. Being a young artist, this was an accomplishment since I had no training in the medium nor did I know what to expect in the outdoors. I loved my new wooden easel even though it was cumbersome. When collapsed, it was almost six feet in height. It became my companion for the summer along with the other supplies when I wasn’t riding horseback with my younger sister Vicki.

My experience of painting in the front yard provided many dreams of being elevated to the tops of the trees for an aerial view of our home and property. Spiritually and psychologically, I felt empowered by attempting to reproduce what God created in my beautiful country environment. My roots were firmly planted in northern Maine and the sky was my limit!