Located in Lubec, Maine
Sail Rock (West Quoddy Head Light), 16 x 20, Gouache on panel.
The original Sail Rock painting is available for sale. Contact me for purchasing.
This is my second painting of West Quoddy Head Lighthouse. The first one was a paiting done from a historical photograph before I visited the site in person. It was also painted before I made the decision to start this journey of painting every lighthouse in Maine.
“Sail Rock” was createed from reference photos I took when visiting West Quoddy Head Light for a second time in October of 2024. I had visited Lubec, Maine a month earlier but only had access to the lighthouse from land. I knew my painting would be more dramatic and interesting if I could get referece photos from the water.
To achieve this, I hired Captain Kinny Corthell of Eastport Charter to take me out to several lighthouses in the area. The trip was worth every cent! (My painting of Lubec Channel Lighthouse from that same trip is already posted on this site.)
I was right in my assumption that West Quoddy Lightouse perched atop the rocky cliff, would look more dramatic from the water. I did not expect how dramatic the rock in front of it would be. You can see Sail Rock from Quoddy Head State Park, but it doesn’t look like much. From the land it’s just a small rock about 700 feet to the southeast of the lighthouse.
On the water however, it rises majestically 10 feet above the waves and is never underwater, even at a high storm tide.1 This would explain why the top of Sail Rock maintains it’s striking white color thanks to the numerous sea birds constantly “decorating” it.
Back up on land sits a granite marker proudly marking West Quoddy Head as the “Easternmost Point in the U.S.A.” In reality that distinction belongs to Sail Rock, home to only the seagulls and coromorants.
The second I saw Sail Rock up close and looming above me from Captain Kinny’s boat, I knew that it was going to be the focus of my painting. I also liked the idea of giving West Quoddy Head Lighthouse, perhaps for the first time in its history, second billing. Photographs capture the way a landscape looks, but never the way it feels. To get the composition and feeling I wanted I did take some artistic license with the placement and size of Sail Rock in relation to the lighthouse, however it would still be a recongnizable viewpoint to anyone offshore and that close to the coastline.
This blog is about visiting and painting every lighthouse in Maine. If you want to learn more about the history of West Quoddy Head Light, I highly recommend one of my favorite websites, Lighthouse Friends. They do a fantastic job researching and telling the stories behind all the lighthosues in the US and Canada.
About the Painting
The original painting, “Sail Rock (with West Quoddy Head Lighthouse)” is 16″x20″ gouache on panel. The original is for sale, unframed, for $800. Please contact me for details.
Prints, with custom framing available, can be purchased from my online print store, fineartnewengland.pixels.com.