`Editing’ process illuminates seascape artist’s distinctive style

Harvey Peterson lives in Oceanville on Buckmaster Neck at the southeastern tip of Deer Isle. A mile from the road, down a narrow car path darkened by tall spruce trees and occasional boulders, is an unfinished cape with windows that look over Deer Isle Thorofare and a loft where Peterson, a watercolorist, will arrange his painting studio when the building is done.

The nearby fishing villages, the trees and rocks and piers and people who inhabit the area around Peterson’s new home are the subjects of his paintings which are on exhibit through August at the Greenhut Galleries in Portland.

Although Peterson grew up in Baltimore where he lives and teaches during the school year, he has been vacationing in Maine since he was 2. The inspiration for his bold, scenic paintings has been almost exclusively Maine. The artists who have influenced him the most — Marsden Hartley, Winslow Homer, Fairfield Porter, Andrew Wyeth — are also of Maine, but Peterson would not go so far as to call himself a “Maine artist.”

Stonington Harbor, Billings shipyard, and the nearby settlement quarry are some of Peterson’s prime settings for his paintings which he describes as realistic or representational, but not overly concerned with details. The works are not simply seascapes or landscapes, but show the relationship of the sea to the life, history and communities on land.

The focus on coastal themes was also fostered by Peterson’s sailing and racing days on the Chesapeake which were featured previously in his paintings. His personal connection to that time and place, however, has faded considerably, and although he can appreciate the richness of the Chesapeake environs, he is principally devoted to documenting his experience of Maine.

Working from slides, Peterson begins his creative procedure by tracing projected images onto canvases. Originally, he would draw the scenes from photographs before applying color, but realized that the drawing was too time consuming and that his real interest was in the actual painting.

To expedite this process, he began working from slides. It is similar to a paint-by-numbers approach, he says, but he’s the one doing the drawing, doing the numbering and coloring. Through this type of “editing,” Peterson’s distinctive artistic style finds its expression. Because Peterson can readily reproduce any of his preliminary sketches, he is able to experiment more freely with the use of color.

“When I spent a lot of time doing drawing, I would get precious about the painting process,” says Peterson. “I would paint more tentatively. In watercolors, you’re not allowed too many mistakes. I would move too cautiously and that would be reflected in the paintings.”

Peterson’s early work was architectural, depicting barns, historical buildings and interesting structures. His newest thematic interest involves life figures in his paintings and, on Tuesday nights, he joins the figure drawing class to hone this skill.

Primarily, Peterson’s paintings are watercolors, but he also does ink drawings, wash drawings and monotypes. His work has been exhibited in Maryland and Pennsylvania, and his success in those regions has been notable. But it is in Maine where his artistic calling is most forceful, most exciting and nurtured.

“When I was younger, I wondered what I was going to do when I ran out of subject matter here (in Maine),” says Peterson. “I’ll never get tired of the place though because I keep looking at new things and finding new ways to see … I will always be influenced by lobster boats and spruce trees. The one thing that my family always dwelled upon was that Maine was an anchor.”