Blog

Well, we were able to paint on only one of the four sessions scheduled during this period. This past month was the rainiest September on record for Baltimore, and October so far has been equally disappointing. On September 24 I tried to paint at the Patuxent Wildlife Refuge (I was the only one stupid…er, optimistic enough to show up) but while it wasn’t actually raining, there was so much damp in the air that my mounted paper actually was staring to curl by the time I got to my chosen site. Golly. On October 1, I tried again at the Howard County Conservancy’s Fall Festival, but the dense clouds and soaking ground defeated me. I did not see any other artists there. On October 7, though, we got lucky. Rita C. and Brenda joined me at the Orange-Avalon area of the Patapsco Valley State Park, and while the ground was still quite damp, at least there was sun. I think I may have been a bit stunned by the unaccustomed sunlight…I tried a small 8x10 of sun and shadow on birches, but only the top half of the painting was successful (so, it’s more like an 8 x 5!) and I need to work on it when life gets a little less hectic. And today we were supposed to be at Cromwell Valley Park, up north of Baltimore, but again we got rained out. We’ve got only two more sessions scheduled for 2011…I sure hope the weather starts cooperating!