Plein air, paint, and pastels in Valentine Estabrook’s latest exhibit

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Moshup Trail II - Valentine Estabrook

Fans who have missed artist Valentine Estabrook’s presence at the biweekly Artisans Festival will be happy to hear that her work is currently featured at the Chilmark library. Ms. Estabrook exhibited at the Artisans Festival from 2008 to 2015 before opening her own Gallery Gallery in West Tisbury. There she shows a wide variety of styles, from representational landscapes to abstracts.

For the current show at the library, Ms. Estabrook is exhibiting the style she is best known for — beautiful Vineyard landscapes in pastels, plus a few plein air paintings in oils. Ms. Estabrook is one of the founders of Aire MV, a plein air painters group who recently had a very successful group show at the Old Sculpin Gallery.

One of the reasons that Ms. Estabrook moved her base of operations from the Artisans Festival to her home gallery is that she has been focusing on larger works for the past few years. The show at the library will spotlight some of her stunning large-format pastels.

Ms. Estabrook has a fondness for scenes in which the foreground is in sharp focus, contrasting with a glimpse of the sea and sky in the background. “I like to paint as if you’re right there,” she said. “That’s kind of the effect.”

In one painting, the focus is on a weathered wooden railing with all of its rough edges and variegated colors reproduced beautifully. The sun glinting off individual blades of the tall waving beach grass creates an almost photographic feel. Beyond this, one sees sand dunes, a sun-speckled sea, and a cloudless sky. The viewer can almost feel the sun and slight breeze and imagine standing at the railing, having just rounded a corner or climbed a hill and gained a first magical peak at the ocean.

In another, larger painting, the foreground is a soft pastel wave of peach-colored flowers, done in a looser style. The scene fronts a calm sea and a skyline with clouds scudding by, and a tinge of pink that reflects the colorful foreground.

In both paintings, the artist has managed to capture that irresistible charm of the Island’s hidden views.

“For the pastels, I work in my studio,” Ms. Estabrook said. “I first sketch it in broadly on location, and then take a picture and go from that.

The small plein air paintings are done in an entirely different, rougher style. For these, Ms. Estabrook uses a palette knife to capture the texture of sea, cliffs, sand, and scrubby beach growth. The style is simpler and more impressionistic, but equally evocative.

Ms. Estabrook explained why she uses a rougher style for her onsite paintings, where the artist has to capture the light quickly: “In plein air you’re working to represent a particular time of day,” she said. “You have to grab the moment.”

“I’m not a realist,” she added. “It’s more interpretive. What I’m mainly working on with the pastels is contrasting colors. When I’m doing my pastels I’m trying to establish the angle of the light. I prefer the light later in the day. I like the warmer light.”-

Two of the artist’s favorite spots to paint are Moshup’s Trail and Lambert’s Cove. She loves the contrast between scrubby, wild beach path and serene, deserted beach views. “There are just some beautiful walks on the Island,” she said. “I like the different vistas [on Lambert’s Cove]. Turning around, you get a very different perspective.”

Check out the show of Ms. Estabrook’s work at the Chilmark library, and you may be inspired to get out and enjoy a meditative walk through one of the Island’s numerous trails. It’s the perfect time of year to admire the Vineyard’s serene beauty.

Valentine Estabrook’s paintings will be on view at the Chilmark library through Oct. 14.