Galesville Paint Out

Spring Day in Galesville, oils on canvasboard, 9" x 12"

This weekend MAPAPA members are painting in Galesville, a historic town on the West River just south of Annapolis. The owners of the River Gallery, housed in a quaint old building on Main Street, invited the members to bring their paintings to the gallery after the Paint Out, where they will be on exhibit for the next month.

I'd scouted out the place the weekend before and talked to Laura Dixon, one of the three owners of the River Gallery. She gave me a tourist map of the town and told me she lived right on the water across from Thursday's Steak and Crab House. The owners of the restaurant didn't like people parking in their lot; since it's small they prefer to reserve it for customers, but Laura said that we were welcome to come into her yard if we wanted to paint there. That day a chilly wind blew from the water, so I walked around and took things in, but decided to wait until the following weekend.

Today the morning was bright and sunny as I packed my gear and headed out to Galesville. I decided to take Laura up on her invitation and went to her house to paint the view form her back yard. Unfortunately, I had a doctor's appointment in the early afternoon, so my window of opportunity for painting was only about two hours. I'm afraid my painting did not turn out very exciting; I'll go back tomorrow to try for a better one to leave at the gallery. It was still a wonderful day to be out painting.

Riverbend Park

Riverbend Park, oils on canvasboard, 9" x 12," $300 unframed

My painting season started yesterday with a MAPAPA Paint Out Plus, beginning with a short talk by master artist John Bannon at Riverbend Park in Virginia. Riverbend is just above Great Falls Park and to get there I drove along Old Georgetown Pike, a winding scenic road that parallels the Potomac River through some of the most expensive real estate in the DC area.

The day was gorgeous: sunny and crisp, if a bit too windy. It was the first really lovely day of spring so far, with the cherry blossoms and pear trees in their full glory. The Virginia bluebells were starting to bloom along the park trails and countless other small woodland plants such as bloodroot and liverwort showed their leaves.

We painters scattered about the park to paint, agreeing to return around one o'clock for a critique. There are some very good painters in this group; my morning effort seemed so amateurish that I decided to stay and do another painting in the afternoon. The wind had died down a bit by then and it was warmer, but sudden gusts still blew off my hat a couple of times--lucky the wind was blowing from the river and not toward it. My second painting turned out much better, as you can see above.