Paint Annapolis Report

John and I arrived in Annapolis late Wednesday afternoon.   We had to stop at the Maryland Hall for the Arts to check in.  One of the first people we ran into was David Diaz, it's always good to see David and the banter that goes back and forth between my husband and I, and David. We always have some good laughs.  I've known David for a long time and he's always cheerful and funny.  David stamped my boards so they had the official mark of Paint Annapolis 2011.

They were serving wine and tidbits for us, the memorable wine of that afternoon is a wonderful red called The Culprit.  We tried to find that wine in between painting that weekend and had no luck but it's on our "grail" list of wines.

We scouted locations and met with our host family, Carol and Steve Rum, who my husband, for some reason, kept calling Steve "Jim."  (John has Star Trek on the brain.)  We had dinner with the Rums that evening and packed it in for the night.

Thursday, we ventured out and I was looking for a nice landscape to warm up the weekend with.  It's nice to use something that you know well and puts you on auto pilot for painting.    The painting above is that painting and is the one I eventually gave the Rums, thanking them for opening up their home to us.

After that nice warm up, I moved on to a little Flower Shop.  This one took a lot of time and I was exhausted and hungry by the time I was done.

After lunch and taking a break we moved on another landscape.  I was trying out this new pastel board and I used it to paint masts.   I am fascinated by the Annapolis skyline and all the sailboats.  So I felt a painting of mast were in order.  This painting is hard to see, I didn't get a chance to take a photo of it out of the frame.  (Top one below.)

The last painting of the day, my husband and I sat by the water to relax.  It was getting breezy and chilly but the sky and clouds looked awesome, I had to paint them.  This is my personal favorite of the day and it has a little story behind it...when I painted this one, it was near waterfront condos in Eastport and a woman was walking a Chihuahua.  Of course we fawned over it because we have two of our own.  A little while later, as I was painting, I heard the girl shout as the Chihuahua took off like a shot.  My husband went to help while I finished the painting.  They didn't find her so I packed up and went off to help.    It turns out that little Chihuahua bolted blocks away.  Someone found her, she almost got hit by a car.  We were looking around her neighborhood when someone told us where she was...the night ended with a happy ending, anyway, and here is that little painting....

More to come about my weekend in Annapolis.....