The saga continues with a new author...

I hope you have been reading Jacqueline Newbold's recent blogposts about our painting trip to France and Portugal. It is my turn (Helen Brown) to blog for the High Desert Art League, so I thought I'd piggy back on some of Jacqueline's enthusiasm for travel and painting!  I do love traveling with my husband, but he doesn't paint. And as patient and supportive as he is, I hate to keep him waiting on trips while I sit and paint. So traveling with another painter as I did on this trip was a very fun change of pace and one I highly recommend!!
I worked mostly in my little accordian fold sketchbook (see photo), while Jacqueline was enjoying creating wonderful postcards to send home to friends and family.

First stop was southern France where my good friend Agnes has a vacation home in Basque country. She was a fantasic host to us!! If you are reading this, Agnes, merci encore une fois!!!!

Jacqueline and Agnes in front of the port at St. Jean de Luz. 

I tried to recreate these wonderful Basque homes without painting every window and door. The Basque words in the lower left were on a napkin that I kept and pasted into the book before painting. No idea what they mean but I wanted a sample of this mysterious language in my sketchbook.

After three days in Ciboure, the little town near St. Jean de Luz (which is near Biarritz), we were sorry to say goodbye to Agnes. Her knowledge and enthusiasm for the region made this portion of the trip a real highlight for Jacqueline and me. She was a generous and incredibly hospitable host! A great ambassador for the French people. And my very good friend!

For our last night she took us to a beachfront bar where we watched the sunset and ate tapas.

Next stop...the Dordogne.

Helen Brown

More Fun with Fun

Next on our journey, Helen, our friend, Agnes and I went to Spain for happy hour.  Agnes drove us to the tiny French border town, Hendaye, deep in Basque country.  Here we caught a ferry for 5 euros that took us on a very short ride into Spain.  We arrived in time to walk around the charming town of Fonterrabia, complete with cobble stone streets and a beautiful church at the top of a hill.  As the sun set, we drank sangria in the old town square, painting in our journals.  I loved all the different colored doors in the old town square.  I also loved that we could buy a drink of sangria and the bar didn't mind that we took it out into the square where we were sitting, drinking and painting and enjoying the church bells ringing as the setting sunlight glowed in the town square.

Broken Top show features HDAL members

High Desert Art League members Cindy Briggs and Jacqueline Newbold showed their watercolor works at the Broken Top Clubhouse tonight in Bend at the show's opening reception. Cindy demonstrated her painting as patrons listened to jazz and enjoyed the wine tasting.

"Journeys" is the theme of this wonderful show  which depicts locations near and far. If you missed it, you can see Jacqueline's and Cindy's beautiful paintings through the months of September and October.