Austria, day 4, painting day

After breakfast I did some drawing then Carol and I went hiking. It was a rainy day and had lots clouds hanging on the mountains. We are catching up with the jet lag.

Day trip to Innsbrook

We visited Ambras Castle that was excellently restored and had what may have been the world's first art museum. Then we had a shopping spree in the 15th century section of town/Innsbrook.

Sweet sweet sleep

After missing two nights sleep tonight will be so nice.  We arrived today into Munich and had a three-hour bus trip to arrive here at Hotel Roger, Stubitail Valley near Innsbrook. I'll write tomorrow.

Blogging from Europe

I'll be leaving soon for Austria and Switzerland with a one-day in Venice.  I am pretty excited and want to try to blog from my iPad so I'm trying to figure out how to attach photos to the blog, but I'm fairly certain that blogging text will be straight forward.  Maybe I'll stop in at the Apple Store and see if they can help me.

Snow in Summer

Diptych 18x24" original oil on canvas, Bear Hill Road Series,
Cutter House Show, Arlington MA, November 2012

Maybe painting snow on a hot day helps.  This view of Bear Hill Road last winter was after our biggest snowfall, maybe 4 inches--very unusual for us up here in New England to get so little.  This diptych, consisting of two stretched canvas panels 18x24" each, tries to portray late afternoon on a cold cloudy day.  My favorite scraggly trees are in the far distance and there is a slight indication of the setting sun on the horizon.  I'm still working on the snow in the foreground.
I didn't post the picture I last talked about with the dual focal point predicament because I've worked on it since I took the last photo and need to take another one to post.

Oh gosh, now gouache

Whew....it's been a while since I posted, sorry.  I have been busy painting but nothing is finished yet.  I'm having a little dual-focal point problem.  I'll go into that tomorrow and post a photo.  I really need HELP.

In the meantime, I'm going on a trip and thought that doing sketches with gouache might be a nice way to get the gist of things, a quick pencil or pen sketch and add a little color.  A couple of days ago I went to AWS and loaded up on gouache and various papers.  I bought Winsor Newton and read the detailed information on this medium.  I read articles and watched videos on-line.  Now I'm ready to go on my maiden cruise into the land of painting with gouache.  If you have some experience with this, be sure to pass it on to me. (I'm editing this a few days later: I tried it and so far I love it!  The brush moves smoothly and quickly over the surface.  I've tried several brushes and papers, and a acrylic medium as well.) 

Yesterday I went to see the totally fantastic show at NSAA Gloucester, MA to celebrate the 90th Anniversary of its founding.  There are many wonderful paintings and sculptures of the original founding members on display as well as many works of other famous members who came along shortly after.
I hope to be able to furnish a better link regarding this show soon.  NSAA web link.  It looks like the Facebook page is now their new "go to" page for information but it's not there either.

There was a mesmerizing painting by one of the original members in gouache that I would like to post here for you to see.  I'll find it.  Keep checking.