So Off We Go to Lisbon

What a change from the Dordogne! We flew to Lisbon, Portugal and at once noticed the differences in color. Many of the buildings downtown are covered with beautiful Portuguese tile. If not tile, they are covered in white, which we learned later is marble powder; a by-product from the marble quarries which they paint on like a whitewash.  Still painting, High Desert Art League members, Jacqueline Newbold and I (Helen Brown) sat in cafés or up by the castle and sketch with watercolor.

We are both studio watercolor painters, although we do enjoy sketching en plein air. So for future reference, we snapped tons of photos along the way as Jacqueline is doing in the photo below.

Back at home, I am painting now for the holiday miniature show at the Tumalo Art Company using some of my photos. Here is one of them in a 12 x 12:

As you can see from the two images above, I left out the underpants in my painting. (I do like the shadow they made on the wall though!) and I also opened the window for interest. 

The Tumalo Art Company is located in Bend's Old Mill District just south of REI. 

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.

Mixing Fun with Fun!

Helen and I traveled to France, Spain and Portugal to paint and do a bike tour.  We took our watercolor art journals along with us and found fun places to relax and paint.  One of our first stops was Saint Jean-du-Luz, a cute fishing village in the southwestern part of France.  This area is known for it's Basque influence, sea food and beautiful sandy beaches.  We painted postcards to send home to family and friends.

Postcards from Saint Jean-du-Luz

Helen's postcard of boats in the port.