Painting and travelling

"The Delicate Interconnection of Seagulls and Laundry" 4"x 6" seagulls on watercolor paper

My brother and I went to Glacier National Park in Montana and Waterton National Park in Alberta, Canada two weekends ago. The picture above is St. Mary Lake in Glacier at Sunrise. That was certainly the clearest lake water I’ve ever seen. A few minutes before this photo was taken a bald eagle buzzed by us carrying a fish that was easily half his size. With water this clear it doesn’t seem like there would be any sport for an Eagle fishing here.

You can see more pictures of our trip and various other outings hiking, camping and exploring at my brother’s Flickr™ photo site.

Atop Mount Erie in Northern Washington near Deception Pass. Thanks to TheGraceGirl for telling me about Mount Erie. The view was well worth it. =)

As it turned out, I was the only kayaker that day paddling around Gig Harbor, Washington doing more picture taking than kayaking. I couldn’t figure out how to balance my watercolor painting easel on the kayak I rented, so I ended up just buying a disposable camera and taking some pictures with it. Next time I intend to at least take my sketch pad out kayaking.

Stormy Weather Arts Festival Poster

Here is my newly finished poster for the Stormy Weather Arts Festival November 3-5 in Cannon Beach, Oregon. This is my third year to participate in the festival. Friday night we'll start the event off with (an always sold out) Quick Draw where several of us artists are given an hour to produce a piece of artwork and frame it, then immediately afterwards there will be an auction to auction off our newly finished work. If you think that an hour is WAY too little time for a normal human to produce a finished piece of art, I'd tend to agree with you. However watching artists produce work in that ridiculously short amount of time is very enjoyable to watch. I'm always amazed at what some of those artists can do in so little time.

Saturday and Sunday there will be many artists around town painting, sketching and chatting with people or given half the chance, napping on the beach. Note: "napping on the beach" is sometimes referred to by us artists as "studying our subject matter". Although to the untrained eye it may appear that an artist is merely sitting in a lounge chair by the beach with sunglasses and an iced tea, the reality is that this is an important function of art, wherein an artist can take in a scene and "study their subject matter". ;)

A variety of musicians play live music throughout the weekend and all over town. Hors d’oeuvres are often served by many of the shops in the evenings and overall it’s quite a fun and festive weekend. I would, however, recommend that you get reservations for lodging ahead of time.