Cindy Briggs featured in PleinAir Today/Outdoor Painter

Excited to have a 3 part series of articles in PleinAir Today/Ourdoor Painter about the Business of Teaching Workshops Overseas.  The series includes planning, promoting, preparing and painting all included in our package to be released soon. Visit www.CindyBriggs.com so sign up for the early announcement.  Here is Theresa Goesling and I in Venice.

CLICK HERE to check out the PleinAir Today Article by Bob Bahr.  

Can you say “Fwa Gra”?

Jacqueline and I took our rental car from the Basque country and made our way to Sarlat-le-Caneda, a wonderful town in the Dordogne region of France. We stayed in a hotel within the walled “old town” of Sarlat. The weather wasn’t great, but we couldn’t have been happier painting, eating foie gras, shopping and driving to the local sights (Lascaux caves, Castelnaud, Beynac, Roc le Gageac).

These sweet geese are getting stuffed so that they can produce the 

delicious goose liver pate (foie gras) that tourists enjoy. I must admit that I love it, too. But I can’t bear to think of these poor creatures being gorged.

We stopped at nearly every scenic spot to either paint or snap a photo. I believe this was in Beynac, a village along the Dordogne River.

Jacqueline sketched this stone structure as we stopped to picnic.

Then it was back to the hotel to dive into our sketchbooks, watercolor postcards, fois gras and red wine. Our hotel had a great inner courtyard where we could paint. We met many of the hotel guests as they came and left, most were curious about what we were doing.

The night sky in Sarlat was a beautiful color! A deep blue/black. I enjoyed painting from these photos I took. This is a café on the central square in Sarlat.

This is an 8" x 8" watercolor of the above scene (cropped).

Here’s another night café scene along the quaint streets of Sarlat.

And my 8” x 8” painting of same.

After five days in the Dordogne, we set off for Lisbon, Portugal!

Several of these paintings and more will be at the holiday show at the Tumalo Art Company in Bend's Old Mill District starting in December. 

Until next time....

Helen Brown

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.

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.

HDAL An Artists' Show for Fall

'Interlude'- an Exhibit at Broken Top Club

  Broken Top Club featured an art exhibit called “INTERLUDE” by three talented artists of the High Desert Art League (HDAL) from September 16 to October 15. The artists and their artwork included: Dramatic and colorful watercolors by Vivian Olsen of detailed wildlife, a variety of figures and animals created with warm wax, called encaustics, by Janice Rhodes, and up close and personal oil portraits of tame animals and still-lifes by Barbara Slater.  

Here two of the artists are shown with their artwork at their Reception during the Club’s Art Walk with Live Music and Wine Tasting. Barbara was unable to attend but all three HDAL artists’ paintings may be viewed on their website:  www.highdesertartleague.com.

Vivian Olsen with her Swans in pastel

Janice Rhodes with her Encaustics

HDAL Summer Exhibit

                   Members At the Sunriver Show in August

Front to Back, L - R:    Vivian Olsen,  Janice Rhodes,  Jacqueline Newbold,  

Cindy Briggs,  Barbara Slater,  Cameron Kaseberg,  and Joren Traveller

These members,  plus David Kinker and Helen Brown,  displayed a variety of creative paintings in an exhibit of watercolors, oils, acrylics, encaustics and solvent transfer art in their show named 'Rhythm in Visions' during August and September.