"Moxie Falls, Somerset County, Maine"

"Moxie Falls In Spring, Somerset County, Maine"

This is the first Moxie Falls watercolor ever made by Michael E. Vermette as he filmed his experience painting it en plein air on YouTube with his GoPro camera. Located on Lake Moxie Road in Moscow, Maine, Moxie waterfall has a vertical drop of over 90 feet into a pool about 17 feet deep. It is one of the highest falls in New England. The falls are a part of Moxie Stream which flows from Moxie Pond into the Kennebec River, about a mile downstream from the falls. Moxie Stream drains Moxie Pond approximately 5 miles upstream of the falls. There, a hiking trail to Moxie Falls is approximately 0.5 miles with a boardwalk for viewing the falls at the end. Michael uses this subject to feature modulated valued washes present in the flowing waters against the colorfully massive gorge-rock. He captures the full light and color of an afternoon day in August of 2020. This provides the perfect subject for a grade wash lesson where tones blend from one value into another and one color hue into another. The rock here is amongst the most beautiful gray-colored granite stone in the state and offers the painter a dazzling array of color transitions with gray contrasts. 
Michael says, "The beautifully gray-colored granite and the forceful massive falls is a splendid subject to pit yourself against as a painter. It not only holds a vast array of color with graded tonal twists and turns, but it is also a very powerful force of nature to behold. It is hard to paint the falls without full strength values and tones. The fall views are amazing from many different vantage points along the trail with a total drop of 90 feet with a 17 foot pool at its depths at the base. I love the rich but luminous colors and the play of afternoon light on the rock that reveals the very force of the falls carving its way through the gorge.
This is a watercolor painting made on location in Michael's pure and bold style of transparent washes. Michael uses descriptive lines that describe his graded washes, as lines of power, motion, and shape that distinquish Moxie Falls in early June. He painted this watercolor by first preparing a chalk ground that he layered his washes upon where ever there was water. He then left the other areas pure paper. This allowed the falls to burst forward visually. He also wets the back of the watercolor page to draw the paint into the paper to increase the lovely grain texture of the page.
Michael also says, "I am intrigued with the timelessness in change in my paintings. They show a love of color and light with emphasis on the expressive painterly mark and form, which evoke a recognizable feeling, a nostalgic memory, recognizable shapes or even emotional qualities such as the smell of wood smoke in the forested mountain crisp air ." 
Carl Little writes in Volume 30 of The Island Journal, " Michael Vermette, who emulates the vision of one of Monhegan island's great painters of the past, James Fitzgerald (1899-1971), adds impasto oomph to iconic views"
Michael E. Vermette double majored in Painting and Printmaking at the Maine College of Art, receiving his B.F.A Painting degree in 1980. He received his Certification in K-12 Art Education in 1986 through the University of Maine at Orono. A full-time artist and part-time art educator, Michael has been painting in oil, watercolor, and pastel for over fifty years and has won numerous awards for his work, including the Marilyn Sabin, Lauran Coleman and the Beverly Awards at the 12th,13th and 14th Biennial North American Open Shows of the New England Watercolor Society where he has been awarded signature membership. Most recently, Has been been awarded the honor of being the 1st Allagash Wilderness waterway artist-in-residency for the summer of 2020 where he expects to paint another 50 small studies. Michael is also the 2018 first place winner of the Castine Plein Air Festival, and a 2015-2017 winner as well. He won Best of Show in the Kennebunk River Club Art Exhibit and Sale for his watercolor, "Sea Dog". Michael leads several oil and watercolor plein air painting workshops in Maine and New Hampshire throughout the year. He is a Monhegan Artists' Residency Fellow and the 2011 Baxter State Park Artist-in-Residence in Maine. He was also an Artist-in-Residence at Acadia National Park twice in 1999 and 2006. His watercolors, oils, and pastels are in private collections throughout the country and internationally. In Maine, his works have been shown at various galleries and is currently represented by the Frame and Art Gallery in Yarmouth, The Lupine Gallery on Monhegan Island, and the Gleason Fine Art Gallery in Boothbay Harbor, all located in Maine. Because of the very high quality of the painting the starting price is set at 1/4 of the painting's worth. Because of this high quality and the confidence with quality custom shipping, I do not allow money back returns at this time.