NORTHWEST HARBOR was painted on the spot one summer afternoon. It's a very busy harbor, with boats coming and going constantly, not to mention the Cranberry Island Ferry and mail boat that leaves every hour, That many boats seemed like more thab I could paint in the 1-1/2 hours I had before everything changes. This is the essence of plein air painting. Light and tides are fleeting. But it's a great way to capture the feeling of a place. I focussed on a small pier, away from the main activity, but a scene that had a lot of interesting things in it, water, rocky shore, boats and a high per with a moving gangway that compensates for the tides.