Brown County Indiana Retreat

Since I seem to be forgetting to post anything on this blog, I will share with you my friend, travel and painting buddy's blog post of our recent trip to historic Brown County Indiana at the retreat led by my other friend Michael Chesley Johnson! She also links to Michael's blog with his report on the retreat. Click on the link below:
http://www.fromcurioustocreative.com/art-colony-pilgrimage/

I knew only a tiny bit about Brown County and always wanted to learn more. I asked Michael to figure out a retreat there, since he knew a local painter, Douglas Runyon, an expert on the area. It was really great to have a retreat with Michael that didn't involve airline travel! This area was about 3 1/2 hrs from home. Douglas was a wealth of information, and certainly the only way we could have had access to the best parts of this area!

Although it was considered a painting retreat, I couldn't seem to get in the groove to paint (but that is ok, as I needed a vacation one way or another!). Also, because of the late, late spring in Ohio, I had only been able to paint outside once before heading west. I tried to do a couple pastels and oils, but wasn't happy with my work. The only piece I ended up with was from a photograph taken in Brown County State Park. I painted a 6x8 pastel at the table of our cabin one afternoon. These pics are from two different cellphones. The top pic shows my cellphone with photo, the value sketch (trying to do this for all paintings!), and the final painting (which is a bit washed out in this photo).

 Below is another photo, but still doesn't show it true. But I am happy with how this painting came out.