DECEMBER 1, 2007

I've been home for almost a month now so figured I'd better post a few postcards from my trip to Oregon and Washington. It was a fabulous trip... saw some beautiful places and best of all, visited and traveled with friends. I can't thank them enough for their hospitality and transportation. I am so lucky!

I first spent a few days with my friend Judith in Portland.



Her living room was a lovely and comfortable space; my little picture, done with watercolor pencils and pen and ink brings back memories of conversations, music and tea. The paintings on the trip were done in a small watercolor Moleskine... I finally broke down and bought one. I like the paper, the size, and the band around it but don't like the perforated pages.... nor the price. I will try to make one like it.



My friend Annie picked me up in Portland and we had a wonderful trip down the coast. Two nights in Cannon Beach where I painted this of the Haystack. We had beautiful sunny weather, visited two old friends we hadn't seen in years and ended up in Eugene where Annie lives. We stopped at just about every scenic turnout between Astoria and Florence.

I took the train back to Portland and met with JoAnn and we went to Port Townsend where we attended a really fun retreat (Artfiberfest), visited friends In Port Angeles and most of a week in Seattle.



This crooked little thing is about all I sketched for about 2 weeks of the trip.... I did do a lot of arty things at Artfiberfest though. The little sketch is in Katy and Joey's home in Seattle.

For the last week of my trip, I visited another dear old friend, Louise, who lives in the middle of an organic bosc pear orchard in Zillah Washington. I had some time to paint but also was a little helpful in the orchard and we made a very enjoyable trip to the Columbia Gorge



This is the orchard from the front porch of Louise's house.




This is the view out the North window of her house....Rattlesnake Ridge. That's a road in the middle, orchards all around.



And this is East, out the kitchen window, with pear trees in the distance.



Since being home, I did 2 small still life paintings of pears that I brought home..... But mostly, I've been working on a couple of quilts. I've also have been doing little collages.... trying to do one every day, but not succeeding Here are a couple of them.



The mussel shells were color copied from one of my watercolor paintings and cut out.




The cranes are a woodblock print on thin paper glued on with other papers.

I thank my few readers for their comments.