To the Beach

Fall was making an appearance which we felt in the air this first Wednesday after Labor Day. The weather was delightful, but those nasty bugs were still lingering in protected areas so decided to head to the beach knowing the wind would keep them away. We all spread out and found different spots to focus on for painting. With the start of school and the beach closed our numbers have truly dwindled, but the painting will continue. We all will have many paintings to complete over the winter months and  I am sure I speak for all of us when I say painting flowers, boats, and beach will be wonderful when the snow is on the ground.

An Ode to Screened in Porches

If I were Keats I would have written an Ode to screened in porches instead of Autumn. He made those nasty gnats sound wonderful in his ode to Autumn
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies

Lucy's window boxes were beautiful-BUGS BAD

Why oh why have they returned? I thought they were a spring thing and with the arrival of cooler air would just die. Oh how wrong I was. We were ready to capture some wonderful views from Lucy's porch on September 1st, but the bugs were horrible! (maybe we can blame Jimmy) It didn't take much "arm twisting" when Joann offered us her screened in porch. Believe me it was a unanimous decision. She has some wonderful views of North Mountain and the woods. Some of us worked on previous unfinished pieces or just tried out some new techniques, but as always we enjoyed ourselves.

Just a quick note - the week before Pat offered her screened in porch for painting (I was in Corning visiting the glass museum getting very inspired). A big thank you Pat for hosting our "little" group - you managed to pull in seven painters. I must be doing something wrong. No pictures for her group, but lots of wonderful remarks.

Sullivan County Barns

We are so lucky to have so many beautiful barns in Sullivan County. One in particular with three unique silos is at the junction of 220 and 42. Our little group headed out August 18th prepared to capture the barn floating in a field of corn. It could have been right out of Rogers and Hammerstein's song, "O What a Beautiful Morning" except for one very distracting element - CARS AND TRUCKS flying by us. Until you have experienced sitting out in the open on route 220 you have no idea how much traffic goes by that little intersection. At one point a piece of metal flew off one of the trucks and almost hit a very unsuspecting artist. Non the less, we prevailed and captured a fabulous barn. It did cause us to take pause about picking another roadside spot in the near future. Upon leaving after only two hours of painting and unable to hear what our fellow artists were saying sitting next to us... we welcomed with renewed pleasure the peace and quiet found on the mountain. Oh how lucky we are. (Hmmm... maybe next time we should paint the little green barn in town).