Friday, January 25, 2008

Dawn Breaks Over Danforth

This new painting is from an Autumn road trip taken through Washington and Aroostook counties in northern Maine a couple of years ago. We traveled up the coast on Route 1 then left the last eastern US coastal town of Calais and continued inland to the remote village of Danforth. It's well known for the superb fishing and hunting on nearby East Grand Lake which separates Maine from New Brunswick, Canada. We spent a snowy winter weekend in a friends lakeside camp there many years ago. At that time the road to the camp wasn't plowed in winter so we walked three miles from the main road through knee deep snow to get there. It was worth the effort but in the morning we discovered that coyotes had tracked us in! We'd heard them howling all during our trek under a full moon ...a beautiful but eerie experience.
This abandoned barn high up on an exposed ridge north of town offered great views of the lake and Canada beyond. I worked from a photo (originally taken at noon with overhead sun) to get placement of the features and then let my imagination take over for the morning sky and light. This is my second painting of this memorable region.... but not my last I think....

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