Sailboats in Rockport Harbor

"Sailboats at Anchor - Sandy Bay Harbor, Rockport" (16"X20", Oil on Canvas, SOLD)

This painting was a commission that was done from a photo taken by the buyer, a dedicated hobbyist sailor. She had done one of her usual day sails from Boston Harbor to Sandy Bay in Rockport and snapped this shot from the water taxi as they headed for the Sandy Bay Yacht Club. Her boat is the little white one in the foreground.

The water is calm and the evening is coming through a slightly overcast summer sky. I grew up in Rockport, Mass., so I know this scene well. As a kid I often ran along the wall of large and jumbled granite stones that forms the breakwater in the background, sheltering and separating Sandy Bay from the Atlantic Ocean. The mouth of the harbor is out of the shot on the right, and the roundabout at the tip of Bearskin Neck is on the left.

I like the sense of quiet in this painting, sharpened by the fact that nothing is happening in it at all, not even a ripple on the water. Rockport was often like that as I was growing up there and I think it may be why I like quiet subject matter like this.