Here I am participating in Dubois County Art Guild’s Plein Air Event in May. I got third place in the quick draw-that painting is not shown because it sold and silly me forgot to take a photo first- and also third place in the Plein Air contest. I always wanted to paint the bright yellow fields in the spring before the farmers planted the them; however springs are busy, and I never got out until now.
In the words of travel writer Rick Steves, “If Heaven isn’t what it’s cracked up to be, send me back to Gimmelwald.” I spent four days in this area last summer hiking and sketching; it felt like an isolated paradise floating above the rest of the world. One always had a sense of the height of the place, always a glimpse of the drop off to the valley below.
One of my favorite aspects of the visit was that we would hike miles up into the Alps and then come across a working farm that also served food and beverages to hikers. It was my own little alpine Starbucks nestled into the green hills. The little cheese farm that we had coffee at the morning I worked on this sketch is located just behind me in the photo. The day before, we hiked to Rotstockhutte, a hostel-type place that also served food to day hikers, and had some coffee, tea, and fresh pie. As we walked away, we were debating how they got their supplies, and just then we saw a helicopter flying in supplies-looked to be kegs of beer from where we were standing!
This is the last sketch from my Europe trip sketchbook. I sat in the gardens of the Oberhofen Castle and drew this view across Lake Thun. I was intrigued with the unique shapes of the mountains. There was a worn softness to them that was fun to put to page.
The day we arrived in Lausanne, we were travel-worn and at the part in our trip when we just needed a lazy day. We walked a beautifully landscaped path along Lake Geneva and sat to sketch the vineyard-covered hills rising from the lake. That evening, we picniced in a park and went to sleep to the cheers coming from the streets because of the World Cup.
England’s Dartmoor National Park has large granite outcroppings called tors. Hay Tor is one of the most impressive and popular. There are small footholds and handholds to scramble to the top. After exploring the rock structure, I sat in the field in front of the tors to make a quick graphite sketch. Like everywhere we hiked in the park, we shared the space with the grazing sheep. 
While on a trip around Europe last year, I hiked along this eastern coast of Ireland. Scrambling down the cliff to reach sea level, I did this little pen sketch of the rocky coast and lighthouse. A couple of ladies came down to the same cove and preceded to skinny dip in the space in front of me while I drew. Oh the adventures!
Last fall we visited some friends on the West Coast and took a day to relax at the beach. I did a small sketch on location, reveling in the geometric forms of the rocks. This spring I painted this little blue painting from photographs I took that day. I really enjoyed getting to paint the huge expanse of sky. Where I live is all hills and trees, and I do not often get to see the colors of the sky as it meets the horizon.
In 2009, I took a family trip with my husband, mom, sister, mother-in-law, father-in-law, and two close family friends, Collin and Kathy Staley to Glacier National Park. It was a bittersweet trip-the last one we were able to take with Collin, who was undergoing chemo at the time, but the first of many we were able to take with my father-in-law who was recovering from colon cancer. Taking an Amtrak train along the northern US, we arrived in Glacier National Park and spent our first few nights in Many Glacier Lodge. The first morning we awoke to a fresh couple of inches of snow–in June! It was magical and breathtaking and cemented my love of the national parks. I dug into some of my old photographs of that first morning at sunrise and did this little oil painting.
The corn field in front of our house has a lone cedar tree on its edge, and when the winter sun sets in the valley, one strip of sunlight illuminates it and the golden field right before dusk. I started this painting at a workshop I taught at the French Lick Artisan Gallery this past winter. I really happy with the final result of muted blues and yellows. It is a good to branch out from the very green paintings of summer. When teaching the workshop, we started with the traditional monochromatic underpainting-this one in burnt sienna. Then, I blocked in the large areas of color (bottom image) and continued to add detail on top. When composing the painting, I was intrigued and played around with the overlapping diagonal curves.
Snow Creek, 2014, oil, 36 x 48 in
During an evening walk, my husband and I wandered up this small creek with exposed bedrock. The setting sun warmed the snow with an orange glow, and the remaining beech leaves shone as if fragments of stained glass hung in the air.
