JoAnn Pippin lives in Grantham, NH, and has been painting in watercolor for 14 years. Her primary studies were at the Art League School in Alexandria, VA, but she has also studied with other nationally acclaimed artists.

In 1995, she retired from a career in electronic publishing to live aboard a boat with her husband, Ron. Three years later, they came ashore to Glen, NH, where she began selling her paintings in summer art fairs and local galleries. They moved to Grantham in 2002.

Her New England landscapes and close-ups of nature have appeared in galleries and juried art shows in New Hampshire, Maine, California, and Colorado. Locally, she exhibits at the Harbor Gallery in Sunapee, Artisan's Workshop in New London, and The Artery in Grantham, with occasional shows at the Red Roof Gallery in Enfield and AVA in Lebanon.

She won First Place for her Leaves and Reflections in Art in the Park in North Conway in 2001; that work was also chosen by the National Watercolor society for display in the 2007 All Members Show. Her painting Blue Flag by a Tidal Pool was featured as the poster for the 2006 Portland Flower Show, and her New Hampshire landscapes have been recently exhibited at the River Valley Club in Lebanon, the Forest Conservation Building in Concord and the Lyme Public Library. KEARSAGE MAGAZINE featured Daffodils in Profusion on their spring 2007 issue, and the January 2007 page of the Musterfield Farm calendar is one of her works. A special series, Boathouses of Lake Sunapee, was exhibited in the summer of 2006 at the New London (NH) Inn.

Reproductions of some of her paintings are available. To inquire about reproductions or to commission a painting of a place you are fond of, contact the artist at JoAnn@pippin-art-prints-and-paintings.com, or 603-863-8425.

I hope that you will take a little time out of your busy life to appreciate these paintings and the charming structures they represent. There can be few lakes in the country that have such a wonderfully preserved group of boathouses!

Visit JoAnn Pippin's web site at jlpippinstudio.com

 

Lake Sunapee Boathouse Series

Inspiration for the Boathouse Series: Somehow the inspiration to paint the boathouses of Lake Sunapee was intertwined with the boat-building project that my husband undertook in the past couple of years. His dream was to produce a very sea-worthy, trailerable, traditional-looking day cruiser with modern materials. I call it a poor man's picnic boat.

 

As you can imagine, this project took over the workshop and the garage for a much longer time than estimated, and he was feeling pretty guilty by the end of the project. So, to placate me for all the time lost and having to shovel out the car for two winters, he decided he had to launch it for the first time in the most beautiful and impressive lake around here--that, in our minds, is Sunapee.

It was a glorious midsummer day when we launched, the lake was sparkling clear, and we could go anywhere we wanted. I immediately noticed the many unique and colorful boathouses, and soon we were speeding from boathouse to boathouse, admiring their grace and character. It was then that he said, Why don't you paint a series of boathouses this winter?

The idea caught on, so we returned with my camera, and took many pictures. I spent most of the winter of 2005-2006 working on watercolor paintings of the boathouses.

 

I have not painted them all. I don't know if anyone has ever taken a count, but there are an astounding number of them. I randomly chose ones that were appealing. A lot are tiny, some are old and well-used, some are architecturally charming. There are still a few more I would like to paint, and probably some I haven't even found yet to photograph.