Pastoral paintings – at some point, whenever I’m visiting in one – I slowly become aware of this slight smile on my face and then the right side tilt of my head as I begin dreaming of where in the painting I am. After I see myself there, an adventure begins. I find it’s always best to give myself a lot of time for this bit.

Over the past year, I’ve been seeking out bucolic paintings and books, their stories set in the English and Italian countrysides, Maine’s wild places ...

I’m a closet lover of bucolic paintings. Why? For the feelings of peaceful, warmth, simplicity and downright wistfulness they evoke in me. Near the end of last year, for some reason I remembered some lovely paintings of sheep that Ann Scanlan had painted. I think a few were used to promote an upcoming show. For those of you who don’t know Ann, she owns Sylvan Gallery in Wiscasset. Ann and her late husband Rick re-opened their gallery there in May 2012, moving it there after 11 years in Clinton, Connecticut.

I took a cyber-visit to the gallery around New Year’s and found great paintings to lose myself in. Sometime later, I decided I had to give Ann a call, talk about her art, and see what she’s been up to this winter in her new studio in Bristol, where she moved last summer.

Ann started out as a plein air artist decades ago, but over the years she became quite adept in the art of photography, which led to more and more photographs of the landscapes of which she is so fond. Ann is almost strictly a studio painter now. And when your studio is quite near Pemaquid Point Light Station, the views are quite inspiring. She wakes early and heads down to Pemaquid to breathe in the air, feel the wind and just plain revel in it.

So, I had to ask: What is this fascination she has for sheep, cows and all things pastoral?

“It’s like a meditative experience,” she replied. “Watching the animals interact with each other, the way they move across the landscape; and how the compositions keep changing through each cow or sheep’s movements. It’s so wonderful. It takes me back to simpler times (and) lets me know places like this are still in the world. Places we can go, away from the pace of life.”

When Ann would travel from her home in Wiscasset to the gallery, she’d pass Straw’s Farm. One day, she just had to stop to ask Lee Straw if she could go up to the pastures and watch his sheep and cows.

“I’d be there in the early morning watching the cows before they went in to be milked,” said Ann. “The cows became quite interested and would come right up to me. But the sheep tended to keep their distance.”

The farm’s sheep may eschew strangers like Ann on their land, but Ann was completely taken with them. “I do focus on sheep a lot in my paintings ... in the spring there’s all the little lambs running around … it’s just an amazing, exciting experience.”

In November 2019, Ann and some friends traveled to Ireland, arriving in Donegal for a few days and then Connemara for almost two weeks.

“It had everything I wanted,” Ann recalled, and I could still hear the excitement in her voice. ““And it was just as I imagined – diamond sloping pastures going back into space with lines of trees between them, the greens and how they transitioned darker; lush pastures, rocks and sheep I followed over the dunes. And there is a feeling of Maine there ...  the rocks on the coastline, tiny coves, bays and fishing villages ... it was just a little denser than Maine.”

With Connemara as home base, Ann walked as far and as long as she could every day during that stay – and took hundreds and hundreds of photos. She had no doubts about many of those pics becoming paintings. Ann usually has three or four paintings in various stages in the studio. She said there’s more time to think about color value and get the ones you want. And she said it is less stressful, but “Plein air is the only way to start a landscape. It’s how you understand atmospheric perspective.”

Right before Ann moved to Maine, a friend of hers had studied with Lennart Anderson and had absolutely fallen in love with his color palette. Ann began web searching for artists in Maine using and teaching the indirect painting technique. That search led her to Bath-based artist Tina Ingraham.

I’ve been lucky to study with people who could convey that process. Ann learned, and still uses, the indirect painting technique from  Ingraham, that method of building up multiple layers of paint over an underpainting, for visual and atmospheric effect. Ann employs the indirect painting technique at some point in all of her work. The colors and tones are just more beautiful and create a certain color harmony, she said.

Ann tones her panels in warm colors before beginning to work. Next comes the diagram, the composition (she must always plot out), then there’s the color, blocking in the values. “I always work from the sky down. I might let (a painting) dry (a component of the indirect approach); then I go back in with the glazing for the opaque.”

The layers of paint, stroke work, and shading Ann lays down are really interesting to check out. I enjoy doing so with every artist. So do you, most likely. Her colors play a huge role in creating atmosphere. Ann has ground and tubed her own oil paints for years now using cold pressed linseed oil and pure pigment. If she does buy, it’s only from Williamsburg, Old Holland, or Michael Harding. Ann used to make her own Gesso out of rabbitskin glue and whiting because it was a great working surface, but coating panels with seven or eight layers of the stuff took three days.

“At this point I don't really want to take the time ... I'd rather be painting. The quality of the gessoed panels you can purchase now has greatly improved, too, and you have many more choices than you used to have ... I even used to make my own varnish.”

“It’s the motion of painting I find very appealing, it’s a physical and mental thing. It’s always a challenge to come up with your own version of what you saw; of trying to capture that moment in time.”

It takes Ann a long time to decide if a painting is finished and always has three or four clustered around. Right now there’s one from one of her trips to Straw’s Farm from a series of photos taken on a foggy morning – “Sheep energy” from the fog!

Ann’s ability to completely immerse herself into the memory of each place and the feelings she experienced in them, creates exceptional canvas travel opportunities. A painting Ann just finished, “Lifting Fog, Straw’s Farm” is a gorgeous oil on a 12” x 18” panel ... and here I go ...

I’m drawn to the misty fog and the light slowly becoming stronger in the sky … moving across the painting my eyes move down to the forested area in greens and black … my eyes move down the trunks of the trees and fall on the sheep in the pasture feeding on shrubs and grass. The atmosphere of this painting brings on that smile I mentioned before … the sheep are lazily munching while … wait, what’s this I see in a few of the tree trunks? Looks like a few trees’ spirits have been revealed! Where do I see myself in this place? Walking out from the trees (having visited with one of the trees’ spirits) and then sitting down on the ground, listening to the sheep chewing away … I close my eyes and the scent of pine, earth and, what’s that – a bit of sheep poo?! (insert chuckling here) I can’t keep them closed for long, though, any more than I can stay seated; I’ve just got to get up and move to a better position to watch the fog and the various shades of white and gray … all to the back beat of the bleating of the sheep. (insert sigh here)

“If I can achieve a sense of atmosphere or mood and a certain quality of light, I feel like I've been successful,” Ann said. “I also feel like it's a continual learning process and that I learn as much from the paintings that seem less successful and that I end up putting aside. After weeks or months pass, sometimes they're pulled back out again and I feel like I know what I need to do so they feel resolved. Painting is always a wonderful challenge!”

And Ann, your fans are sure glad you accept that challenge over and over again. But then, we know artists have got to  paint, and we art lovers have got to wait. But it’s all cool. The wait is always worth it.

During winter, with freezing temperatures and COVID-19 still lurking about, Sylvan Gallery at 49 Water St. is open Saturdays. Give Ann a shout at 882-8290 for hours. And because I know you just can’t wait, take a cyber visit around the gallery at sylvangallery.com