Salado Creek 2 - morning

This is from the 3rd day of the Jill Carver workshop. We went down to the water early and I set up on a largish rock in the water (I thought for sure I'd fall in but I didn't). The dark parts are shadows from the trees on the far bank, and as you can probably guess, this scene changed rather quickly. I ended up "chasing the light" (basically changing the painting to reflect how the light changes, as it changes) which is a big no-no in plein air painting. Because the dappled light on the rocks - yes they are rocks - kept changing, I had a hard time keeping them looking rock-like.

Many thanks to all of you who leave comments - they keep me afloat, and I mean that! I wish I had time to thank each of you personally. Thank you!!

"St. Blasien" --- SOLD

So I've been avoiding posting and I'll tell you why. I got over to Germany, possibly the most beautiful place on Earth, with such high expectations, and did mostly crappy paintings. Argh! I didn't want to admit it. But there you go, and here's what I've learned:

1. Don't have any expectations!

2. Appreciating a beautiful place and picking out a good view for a painting are 2 totally diferent and separate things.

3. Never travel to a new place without your regular stuff. I knew I couldn't take turp and I didn't want to bother with getting some there so I took walnut oil. Which is totally different than turp. And frustrating if you've never used it before. My new Open Box M is really fantastic, but since I wasn't used to the shallow palette, I managed to spill half my walnut oil the first day, leaving a very embarassing stain on the perfect German sidewalk. Argh.

I painted this scene on the last day, in a little town not far from where we were staying, called St. Blasien. It's a GORGEOUS place with a river running through it and a giant cathedral with a beautiful dome. But it was the little yellow shop that caught my eye.

We really had a fabulous time in Germany. My husband's birth parents were really the sweetest people. They have a beatiful house and land and horses and garden, etc. The food ... the food was amazing! The exchange rate - not so great. We are glad to be back and are still recovering from jet lag. I will be back to posting regularly tomorrow.

"Die Strasse" --- SOLD

Greetings from Germany! I plowed through my first day with jetlag and slept REALLY well the first night. Since then I've been very busy eating, walking, sleeping, and trying so so hard to understand German. Ach!

And I've done 3 paintings but only this one is good enough to post. I tried to tell my German in-laws that today I didn't paint well, but they thought I was saying the landscape wasn't good! I said, it was my fault ... as well as I could, and I think they got it. : )

For this painting (done yesterday) I set up my new box (which is WONDERFUL, by the way) on this street (strasse) with the beautiful yellow flowers and the lovely tower (and tiny German cars), and directly there came a parade of tractors down the street! I said "you're in my way!", but fortunately they didn't understand me. Ok, not really.

A lot of people were walking by and spoke to me, and I had to explain over and over how little German I understand. One guy who knew some English said "where's the tractor?!"

Tomorrow we are taking a train to Freiburg and I may not be able to paint then at all. I hope to get in AT LEAST ein oder zwei (1 or 2) more paintings before we return on Wednesday.