Hot Texas

Back from cooler places. Kim Hoester and I flew into Boston for a trip up the coast of New Hamshire and Maine. We stayed a couple nights in Bar Harbor, painted a few plein air spots, ate fresh lobster, scallops and shrimp each chance we could, went on a lighthouse cruise boat, took a zillion photo's. All in cooler weather...yeah!!

We left Bar Harbor and traveled towards Canada. Stopped off at a wild blueberry patch and visited with the owners. Bought some fresh berries and jam. Drove past a very blue berry place with everything painted blue, decided we had to see what all they had there. Made a u turn...Blueberry everything, Smoothie, fudge, pies, yummy. We bought a pie and headed to Canada. Visited Lubec, Maine and ate lunch, toured the Quaddy light house in the fog and crossed to Campobello Island, New Brunswick, Canada.

Two ferries to main land New Brunswick. We worried that we wouldn't get to the last ferry on time after whale watching and taking photo's of the lobster boats and light houses. We made the ferry to Deer Island and crossed the island in a hurry to meet with the ferry to the main land.

Our destination in Canada was to St Andrews, NB for a 5 day plein air workshop with Michael Chesley Johnson teaching. We arrived late, found the house we were to stay in, met the owner and went to eat. We found the lodging filthy, cluttered and horrible and slept in our clothes, covered our pillows with a tshirt until the crack of dawn when we got up, left to find lodging somewhere else. I pretended we were camping for one night and could take the mess. Kim threatened to sleep in the car but we had purchased plastic table covers to put our wet paintings on in the rent car to dry. She covered her mattress with it and went to bed.

Sunbury Shores Art Centre manager, Ruth  took us into her clean, comfy home for the rest of the week. We enjoyed the stay. We found very nice people and the area beautiful . Ruth's husband, Ladd took us on a tour of the area. We found out that Ruth was a very accomplished musician with CD's available. The weather was great while there.

Michael was a very articulate and giving of his talent instructor. We both would love to go back to the area and take workshops again.

Summer travel

Back on the blog. I really have good intentions of posting often, but life just gets in the way and I have been on the road most of the summer.

Fellow artist Barbara Hawkins and I took to the road for a 21 day trip to see Garden of the Gods and Estes Park in Colorado. Next we went to Cody, Wy and traveled across Chief Joseph Hwy to the tops of the mountains and back in a loop to Cody. We visited the Buffalo Bill Museum and galleries while there.

After touring the area, we headed to Yellowstone and stayed in the park 4 nights. Not enough time there but we did paint a couple plein air paintings.We had a close call with a bull bison sneaking up on us while painting. We learned to each stand painting different directions and close to the car. Our travels took us to every entrance to the park and a visit at each town taking in as much beauty as we could in that short time. Animals were great and the cold weather and little snow were a treat for us Texans. Barbara and I both wished we were younger and had strength to hike up the paths without stopping for a breather.

Barbara and I left Yellowstone and headed to the Tetons and Jackson, Wy for a few nights. Did the gallery Art Walk in Jackson. I painted at String Lake. We left Jackson for Salt Lake City, a couple nights at Bryce Natl Park and on to Zion.  The north rim of Grand Canyon was our next destination, on to the south rim of the canyon, Sedona and Scottsdale. We toured another national park along the way home thru Arizona to home. 5600 miles in the car, over 3000 photos....tired but happy and lots of painting material.

July has been busy as well. I facilitated the Art League of Ft. Bend monthly critique and posted a painting on Ebay to see if I can sell some of my small paintings. The American Art Collector ad with Artist of Texas group paid off with a sale of one of my larger paintings to a new client. Fellow artists and I attended the Art Expo in the Woodlands. I took a watercolor class and an oil painting class in place of another friend that couldn't attend. A slow process for this plein air painter. The Expo is really a decorative arts thing.

Thanks for traveling along with me on this blog.

A lot going on!

I've been on the road a lot since this blog started. Mother passed away in March and her house is now cleaned out for my sister to move in. That was the hard stuff.....now for the fun stuff!!

March is bluebonnet time in Brenham and the Outdoor Painters Society group painted around the area. Rained us out Saturday so we painted in Lanell Arndt's studio.The last weekend in March I painted with the Oil Painters of America Texas bunch at the Hoerster Ranch in Art, Texas....art in Art.. a good time! Mid April was the OPA paint out in Fredericksburg/Willow City Loop. Georgeous wildflowers this year. The next weekend over to the Marble Falls Paint the Town competition. Rained a lot, but still worth the trip. The last weekend in April was a trip with the Texas 7 to Cocodrie, Lousiana. Now that was a great treat. We painted shrimp boats and marsh land. May 1 was the Fayetteville Art Walk. Paintings sold, weather perfect and good traffic. I've taken workshops recently with Qiang Huang (still lifes) and Judy Crowe (plein air). I spent a couple days painting with Kim in Sargent, Tx. To finish off the month of May I attended our fun art retreat/rock race at the Bunkhouse in Cypress Mill. Oh....I did not win the "rock race".

Foggy Morning

"Foggy Morning" by Marchita Priest, Texas Artist

oil

14x11

 Today's weather reminded me of this foggy painting.

Please visit my website to see more works.

http://www.texaslandscapeart.com/

New Year

Starting the New Year out with my blog up and running. Look for new works on this site.

I am moving out of my old downtown Rosenberg studio at the end of the month and hoping to find a larger one soon. My easel mast is 11 ft tall, (so I can paint large canvas' again) so I'm looking for a tall ceiling.

Please take a look at my website www.texaslandscapeart.com to see my available paintings.