Door County Plein Air Festival

"Door County Round Bales"

11x14

Sunday Evening, just got in and headed out to paint. It always feels good to get one painting under your belt when you're in a new place and this in my mind was the PERFECT way to start the week! I love love love round bales and this land was FULL of them! I was in heaven. And luckily the very sweet farmer who owns this land allowed us to paint and tromp on his very loved land.

"Long View Road"

11x14

Day one, out on the roads of Door County! Coffeed up and ready to go! This was so typical of what you see there, the farm land is stunning and lush. Wheat fields and round bales as far as you can see. The roads were interesting to me because the pavement was WHITE. I mean WHITE. I had never seen that before and found it intriguing. While painting this 2 BLACK steers got loose from the farm you see here. They started coming towards me down the road and with the lovely RED flags we were given by the 'Festival' to mark us as 'official painters' mounted on the corners of the truck it made me think. . . . I thought "I'll wait until they're half way down the road before I consider moving" then they wondered off through the wheat field realizing they were free! It was hard not to chuckle at their animated-ness as we watched them fade off into the distance.

"There Once Was A Time"

11x14
Oh boy, how can I possibly translate how much I loved this place? You could truly feel the history here and I have a soft spot for this painting. The place had the deepest sense of 'at one time . . . . .' This was at one time a very productive cherry orchard and this was the main road. Now both the cherry orchard and the road have been abandoned and no longer in service.

THIS was my favorite place to paint.

A funny story: we were supposed to be doing our 'demo' this day. We were given the schedule and it said something about a being at a "bla bla. . . .clay pottery" something or other. So, we ended up here, just paying attention to the words 'pottery', thought 'well this must be the place'. We went in and introduced ourselves to David, he along with his wife own the pottery studio in front and are incredible artists themselves! (David came up and visited us while we were painting and filled us in on the history of the place) When nobody showed up for our demo we thought it a bit strange but thought "oh well" and painted anyway. It wasn't until we were getting hungry after 1:00 waiting for our lunches to be delivered that we thought we'd call to see what was up. Very kindly we were told we wouldn't be getting our lunches because we were 'in the wrong place'. :) I will say it here, IT WAS WORTH IT!

"Summer Cottage"

8x10

This was painted Monday afternoon at Peninsula Player's Theatre were they held an artists welcoming dinner for us. It's an amazing theatre nestled in the forest on the water! This cottage was so charming with the willow drooping over it, I couldn't help but paint it.

"The Chef's Hat"

8x10

This was Painted on day 2 of our week in the very charming town of Ephraim. I found this little cafe (which became our favorite place to eat lunch for the week - num!) and instantly fell in love with the light and color of these umbrella's. I set myself up on the street between my truck and another truck parallel parked. It was a busy traffic area. In front of me street traffic and walkers behind me, curious to see what I was painting. I met a couple of special people that day. Both budding and inspiring painters!

"After The Rain"

11x14

One of my favorite times to paint is in a warm summer's rain or just after one. This piece was started around 7:00 AM on Wednesday morning, we had to finish up because of a demo we had to be at by 11:00, so I believe we were packed up around 10:00. It's a quiet piece but one of my favorites for it's mood. I'm planning to do a large studio piece inspired by it.