"Where there's a will, there's a way," as the old saying goes, and that's especially true of a devoted landscape painter like myself. This knee that got banged up in the car crash of 3/13 (see below for details) needs some surgery but in the meantime, a girl's gotta paint! The surgery is scheduled for 2 weeks from now and you know me... I can't sit around the house because I'll get cabin fever;) So I try to go out and find scenes that look "paintable". Then I capture as much as possible in my sketchbook and with my camera. I rough out the composition on a canvas and make color notes right there.

When I get back to the studio I have a wealth of information to be cobbled into a painting. As I've written a while back, it feels like I'm testing my visual memory... a sort of visual "pop quiz." That's my kind of fun!!

Here's a new painting fresh off the easel for your entertainment. We were on a drive down by Hamul just before the turn off to Otay Lake when I looked at a pasture on the left. The morning had been overcast but the clouds were moving fast. Just as we approached the clouds broke and beautiful morning sunlight flooded the scene. I had to capture it as fast as possible. I knew it wouldn't last!

"Spring in the Meadow", 9 by 12 inches, oil on stretched canvas.