Yesterday I was to the beautiful rolling hills of Maryland horse country for an outing of painting with some members of the Baltimore Water Color Society. Our hosts graciously opened their grounds for about twenty artists to tramp around, photograph and paint. Southern Living had been there just days before to take photos for a future issue. The gardens were in glorious color, the house, barn and out buildings were a Tom Sawyer white washed clean that sparkled in the morning sun. No humidity, light breeze, clear sky...what I call a "water color day".
As part of the 125 year celebration of the founding of BWS, we were treated to a demo by Stewart White. Stewart is a well known artist from the B'more area with many,many awards for his plein air paintings. He does architectural renderings as his day job.
This was my set up. I had things laid out , ready to go to work and even had the scene sketched in and was watching the demo when I turned around to see "Sophie" aka "Princess" lapping up the water from my container. Just like home. :)
Here is Stewarts finished demo piece.
And here, an informal critique before heading home.
This is a cropped version of a painting I did last year . I have loaded it to a Face Book group that hopes to raise money for the Gulf Spill victims. Paul Jackson from Missouri is leading the way and I invite all my artist friends to get on the site and upload an image. Not many of us can drive to the Gulf to help clean up...esp when the hole is still leaking,no, spewing oil and will for a couple more months! As artists, this what we can do and all of us, I dare say, have a spiritual connection with nature and this what we should do... if not more.
Friday, April 30,2010, The Baltimore Water Color Society took the annual trip to NYC to the American Water Color Society's show in NYC. What a beautiful, sunny, warm, Spring day we had to walk around Manhattan. The water color show was almost an after thought...almost.
" Partners in crime" were Debi Watson and Paul Kasmir from Landcaster,PA. Not sure who this other guy is that they picked up on the street...I'm guessing a spy..you can tell by the beard & sun glasses. They were actually waiting for me after crossing the street. (I was busy taking people photos). They were very tolerant.
I've been to NYC a few times but I must not have looked up. I don't remember seeing these "cartoon" water tanks on the roofs before. And if you zoom in, they seem to be made of wood ! It made me wonder what a plumbers nightmare the city must be !
The watercolor show was, as always, exceptional and I could spend the entire day there. But part of the trip includes a stop at the Metropolitan Museum which is wonderful too. If I sound underwhelmed, it's because there was so much art in one day, it was sensory overload.
The day went by much too quickly. While we were waiting to board the bus back to MD, I stopped to look at what the street venders were offering and found a great photo (not a print) in sepia of this winter in Central Park. 
A little over a year ago, when I first started blogging, I wrote about an experience I had as a child. This was my first experience meeting a "real artist". I published the blog March 19, 2009 and I hope you dig back and look at it. Anyway, I found two photos from the time I wrote about and I'm very happy to share them with you. My dad took the photos, the first being one Mr. von Furer wanted to use in a promotion, the other just one of me and a girl my age from England who was vacationing with her family, too. For the record, I still stand with my hands in my pocket ,contrapositively, and I'm usually squinting at something !
