PLEIN AIR
After a summer of almost no oil painting I found myself doing four paintings in two days! Admittedly, they were very small and quick. This one is only 4 inches high by 6 inches wide. A friend invited members of our art group to paint at her family's vacation house near the town of New Hope. It was so beautiful and peaceful...the perfect way to sink once more into the bliss of painting after a summer of near abstinence.

And today, another painter friend and I tried out her plan to go sketching in the woods with her dog along. It worked beautifully! It was odd for me because when I was a child I had imaginary dogs that kept me company on the long lonely walk to school. I was always a little nervous about the half mile trek alone through the silent backyards and creepy cul-de-sacs of suburbia and so I invented a trio of canine companions to help me feel safer. This experience of painting with a real dog in tow was so much like my childhood imaginings that it actually felt a little surreal! But pleasantly so. Here is the handsome Attila guarding our artistic endeavors.