From Gallery to Gold Beach

As summer approaches, outings open up the heart. Such are the postings on this journal spread. We start on the left with a visit to Grants Pass, Firehouse Gallery for an Opening, then travel over to the Oregon Coast to Gold Beach for play.

My dear friend and artist bud, Roger, has been taking numerous creative classes at the Rogue Community College. With encouragement they got him to do his own show at the Firehouse Gallery. He'd traveled the California and Oregon Coasts relishing time in nature and the discovery of new places. This series of nine paintings, quick, simple, and expressive watercolors are less detailed than his usual color rich pieces, but refreshingly succinct. Of course, after the viewing we had to have lunch. We stumbled across a totally new place to us called Hannah's Restaurant and Historic Steam Laundry (http://www.yelp.com/biz/hannahs-restaurant-and-historic-steam-laundry-grants-pass). The food was excitingly good and the space was majestically big and open. There was easterly huge windows and a well done mural of a southern plantation on the western wall, which of course, held my interest and therefore, the replica. Yummy desserts too, by the way!



Depicted on the adjacent page of my journal is the essence of a playful trip I was treated to by blessed friends. For months we'd tried to get four of us artist friends coordinated and finally, rounded up just three of us to head to a "three-day girl's weekend" in Gold Beach. I have to say the accommodations we enchantingly charming and bizarre at the same time. When we were told there would be three seperate beds, one for each of us, never did we imagine the layout. This sweet, tiny, one-bedroom cabin had one bed in the bedroom, one in the living room and, (yes, are you ready) one in the kitchen. Yep, in the kitchen! It was a riot! We spent the days hitting the beach for long walks with the puppies (two small, cuddly ones), chattering, reading in the sun and cruising the huge Gold Beach bookstore.

There I stumbled upon this giant book, Polar Regions, which hopefully you "get" it's size relative to the portable radiant heater and chair. For just $19.95 it's going to make a fantastic "Art Book" Project I'm hoping to enter in the April Book Show annually at the Illahe Gallery in Ashland (http://www.illahetile.com/index.php).

My sketches are of our tiny, crazy cabin and an experiment. I'd read about these pens, Elegant Writers, hearing they were swell for black and white sketches because when  blended with a watercolor brush, they create these pinkish-bluish bleeds. Well, I was happy with the bleeds but - - you know me, I can't leave color out of anything. So in my attempt to add some color, the pens continued to bleed. Argh. So, my lesson was to do the color of the painting first, then sketch in with the pen to later blend! But it all captures the free, fun weekend had by us girls at Gold Beach.

Happier, sunnier days of summer continue . . .