A friend of Nathan Campbell’s mother taught him to make art when he was young. “She was terminally ill, and she wanted to pass on her knowledge to a young artist,” Campbell said. A month ago he opened his new Eastside Gallery, in the small building at the east end of the footbridge, at 26 Atlantic Ave.

Luckily for Campbell, that friend, Eva Jones, had set her sights on him. “I was eight years old, but she recognized something in me. She said, 'let's go for a ride down to Bayville and sit and look at the ocean.'”

Jones, a summer resident from Massachusetts, gave him his first art lesson. Campbell said she explained some art basics, like perspective and the difference between warm and cool colors. “She taught me about things in the distance being softer, and things in the foreground being bolder and darker.”

“She just threw it all at me in about an hour,” Campbell said. “But I retained it all. It all made sense. She was one of my most memorable teachers.”

Campbell's first sales were in the shop that his mother kept above the family business, Orne's Candy Store, “Above and Beyond Artworks” studio.

“I learned about (art) from my mother (local artist June Campbell Rose) and her sister, Susan Webster.” Webster, a visual artist in Deer Isle, remembers some drawings Campbell did when he was eight or nine. “They possessed the observational skills of a person beyond his years.”

Campbell, who is also a musician, studied jazz and contemporary music at the University of Maine in Augusta. But the music building was next door to the art building, and he found himself spending a lot of time there. “Most of my friends were studying art, and I ended up doing more art than music.”

He describes his acrylic paintings as “stark.” His palette is muted and limited in color. His landscapes and sea paintings feature a lot of gray skies and water, and not a lot of color, partially due to color blindness. “I think being color blind to some greens and reds has made me study color more closely. But I stay away from blue skies. I’m pretty sure there are more gray skies in Maine than blue.”

Campbell has received numerous awards for his paintings. When he was a junior at Boothbay Region High School, he won a first place award in the First District Congressional Art Competition. In 2001 he was awarded third place in the still life category of the national Artist's magazine's “Best Art of 2001.” And he was chosen as one of the top artists of 2002 by Pastel Journal.

And KISMET, a design management group in Yarmouth that places art in homes and work places, lists Campbell as one of its featured artists.

In one of Campbell's other lives, he's a musician.

“We've started a new band that's unbelievable,” he said. The band is called Beggar's Opera. It consists of Campbell, who plays guitar and bass, and Scott Rittall on drums. And about a dozen singers. “We call it a rock duo, but it's really a large group of people, and everybody sings at the same time. It's really loud.”

And he cooks at the Tugboat in the evenings. “I'm usually in the gallery until four, then run over to the Tugboat.” At around 10 p.m. he goes back to the gallery, turns the lights on, and paints “till the wee hours of the morning.”

So when does he sleep? “Yeah, now it's pretty good. I get about four or five hours a night.”

Campbell said he doesn’t like to over work a painting. “I like to get it on the first pass of the brush and call it good.”

And he has done a series of big landscapes that aren’t of any particular place. “They are all about balance and harmony, negative and positive space. I love the negative space of a big empty sky.”

Some of Campbell's paintings can also be seen at Red Cup Coffeehouse in Boothbay Harbor through July. The painter can be reached at 207-350-6657.