JoAnn Pippin has been painting watercolors for over 20 years, with major inspiration coming from cruising in a sailboat from Maine to Key West and camping in national parks across the country. She also loves the woodlands, gardens, and shores of the Carolinas and New England.
Her primary studies were at the Art League School in Alexandria, VA but she has also attended workshops with many nationally acclaimed artists. Her landscapes and close-ups of nature have appeared in galleries and juried art shows in Tennessee, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Maine, California, and Colorado, as well as works accepted by the National Watercolor Society for Annual All Member Exhibits.
While living in Grantham, New Hampshire, she was inspired by the grace and charm of the many historic boathouses on Lake Sunapee. She spent the winter of 2006 painting a series of the boathouses and, with the help of Artisan’s Workshop of New London, exhibited the series at the New London Inn the following July. The original boathouse paintings have since sold but reprints in various forms are still offered. As a result of this project, she has been commissioned a number of times to paint other cottages and Lake Sunapee scenes.
To inquire about custom watercolor paintings, purchasing reprints of these boathouse paintings, and to see more of her artwork, go to www.jlpippinstudio.com, or find JLPippinStudio on Facebook.
Lake Sunapee Boathouse Series
Watercolors by JoAnn Pippin
Available in a large format poster,
art book of 24 prints, or gift card sets.
Click here to visit our online store
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.
Striped Door Lake Sunapee Boathouse by JoAnn Pippin
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 Lake 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.
Visit JoAnn Pippin’s web site at jlpippinstudio.com
Click here to visit our online store