After a very wet spring season, summer finally came to the Pacific Northwest and with it a flurry of PAWA paintouts and pop-ups!
In between family reunions, workshops and other stuff I was able to attend a few and it is always so much fun to gather and get to know new members and connect with old friends!
I'm going to combine two in this blog post.
I had to make a trip to the Scott Milo Gallery in Anacordes. I checked the event schedule on the PAWA website and made the trip so I could participate in the Central Whidbey paintout hosted by Amy Hauser at her house on the island. I got there a little late in the day but plenty of artists were still painting. I set up with a view of the paddock where Amy keeps her cows. They were very obliging to come out and pose for me! They just didn't hang around long... Thats okay, I took a picture and added the cow to my preliminary sketch which was enough to make a quick study .
After painting I was able to spend a little time with Amy and meet her husband. We talked cows, gardens, and life on Whidbey Island and then it was time to make the long drive back to Poulsbo.
Thanks for hosting Amy! Love your place!
The next paintout was a little closer to home. Every year PAWA paints at Bloedel Reserve on Bainbridge Island . It is a favorite location and a unique property gifted to the community by Prentice and Virginia Bloedel after having lived and worked on the property for 30 years. Prentice Bloedel inherited the land from his father who was in the timber business. He then enlisted the help of many well known landscape artists to sculpt and meld the different landscape designs into a creative masterpiece and now a beautiful public garden.
Fatima Young facilitated this PAWA paintout She did a great job directing the many arriving artists to the all the corners of the gardens they could find great painting views.
I started out attempting to paint the foot bridge by the pond in the Japanese garden. I made a bad decision not considering the rapidly changing light and shadow and had to scrape it. That happens occasionally and you just have to reset and start over. It worked out well because I went back to the parking lot to grab a tube of paint and ran into members Gigi Godfrey and Darrell Anderson. We went back to paint around the mansion and my next two paintings worked a little better. It's always more fun and often more productive to paint with friends! =]
And speaking of fun friends, Phil Jensen showed up and captured different flavors of the garden by working on two paintings at the same time.
Way to go Phil!!
After wandering the property and talking with the artists I finished the day painting a scene of the Hood Canal from the back of the mansion where an elderly woman and her daughter were enjoying a quiet moment taking in the evening light.
Another great PAWA paintout! Next time I will write about a few fun days painting at the Dosewalips Sate Park!!
