Rockport and Gloucester

I recently had the opportunity to spend a whole week
sketching in Cape Ann, Massachusetts. It was a gift, really, to have all this time
with my sketchbook and paints, and the weather cooperated, which is always a
bonus. I stayed in Rockport but spent many days in Gloucester as well, and
after a few days the contrasts between the two places became more obvious.

Rockport is all about the tourists, the grand Victorian homes, the little shops and
galleries, the picturesque harbor and of course the most often painted building
in America — the iconic Motif No. 1.

Bearskin Neck Road (named for a bear that got caught in the tide and killed in 1700!) is lined with all the t-shirt shops and galleries, and ends in a jetty with a great view of the boats coming in and out of the harbour.

I was fortunate to have a room facing the back of Motif No. 1 (the red building below, which I sketched in the rain) and from the deck I sketched the fishing shacks and the daily delivery of lobster going to the Roy Moore Lobster Company (above). My reward at the end of the day was always a great dinner of that fresh fish!

Gloucester is a much bigger town with a working
waterfront, old industrial buildings and the historic art colony at Rocky Neck. There was a constant flow of fishing boats filling up at Cape Pond Ice so I had to sketch this one in really fast. 

On my last day I set up facing the shipyards. There’s great beauty in the rusty fishing boats, both in and out of the water.