Monhegan Sternman

"Monhegan Sternman"

This Painting I started as a demonstration at the Lighthouse Arts Center at the Grand Open reception last April 22nd, 2017. It is the same composition that I have painted years ago in the James Fitzgerald studio as a part of my Monhegan artist residency in 1999. I did a whole two hour sketch session of gulls in flight as I bought three boxes of crackers and fed them as i sketched them from life. The young man is a sternman who worked for one of the lobsterman who were bring in their traps for the season. Combining the photographic image with the life drawings of the sea gulls added a nice sense of movement to the composition. Back in 1999 I chose to paint on James Fitzgerald's own vintage Whattman imperial handmade watercolor paper which is a paper that is hands above any watercolor papers that you can choose to paint on today. For this painting I painted the same image in Gemini 300b cold press watercolor paper. This paper has some features that whitman papers have when it comes to lifting out washes with ease. But by comparison, I do miss the gain that I am able to get with a Whitman watercolor paper. I also used a combination of Holbein and Steve Quiller watercolor paints because there is no ox gall in the paint, but only pure pigment and gum arabic, the binder.

Like so many steersman who work for a lobsterman two years before they can own their own boat,  I never saw this lobster fisherman again. I imagine that by now he must have is own lobster boat and fishing somewhere in Frenchman's Bay. He was a strong young man and moved those  50 pound traps around like they were nothing. He was hoisting the lobster traps up onto the dock and then stacking them on the nearby truck to be put away for the season. The lobsterman of Mohegan have got it right, whom fish the Mohegan waters 2 miles from the island seasonally. They are the only ones who practice this type of conservation and it has brought them quite a bit of notoriety. A tight knit community that watches out for each other, they all begin the season together and end on the same day in early Spring. I deeply respect the lives of these fishermen since my own grandfather was a lobsterman out of Rockland, Maine.