Goat Island Lighthouse Reverie – John Lecours, Artist Choice

“This is the favorite of my new paintings for the Choice Show. All of my brushstrokes and mark making in this painting really pull at me. It just flew out of me intuitively,” says John LeCours one of thirteen artists in the 8th Annual Choice Art Show.

Heather Blanton – New Artist

“My works are focused on the energy of the race,” Blanton explains of her “Sports” series. “They are easily distinguishable by compositional elements of color and form. By creating a dialogue between the viewer and the subject matter, this series is a cohesive collection of flat images with a chaotic, pattern-like style where the lines and negative spaces are almost as important as the subject matter.”

The Silverlining – Captured in Paint by Artist Claire Bigbee

The Silverlining is a 42′ Sparkman & Stephens sloop sailboat. She was designed to race for the Commodore of the yacht club in Marblehead, Massachusetts. She was built in 1939 entirely of wood and bronze by the well respected Maine builder Henry R. Hinckley. After racing for a decade, she was owned by several families in Kennebunkport, Maine. The Silverlining is celebrating her 80th year sailing the seas.

Artist Wade Zahares

Wade works exclusively in pastel; he is drawn to the intimacy of the chalk and the ease with which he can blend colors. The magic happens in his studio, a converted shed just off his main house. The studio, equipped with 15-foot ceilings and a house gutter to catch all the pastel dust, is set on 5 1/2 acres of farmland in Lyman, Maine, just a few miles from the Kennebunk farm on which he grew up.

Intuition Takes Over – Artist Insights from John LeCours

“I had just finished this plein air sketch in an hour. Compared to my studio work that I had spent hours on, it just blew them away. There was no comparison,” says LeCours. “The plein air work had more energy, more vitality. It was more real than the studio work. Because it had come from a three-dimensional world and I was reacting to the elements, even the wind, it had more life. It had all fed into my creativity.”