Sterling and I spent the weekend at a B&B in Marin County. The relaxing lodging with hot tub was our gift to ourselves before the start of the art festival season. For Sterling, it was a painting trip. He painted two 12" x 16" paintings and one 9" x 12" at and around McClure Beach in the Point Reyes National Seashore. He plans to come back and paint at the restored ranch there as well. Although it was quite windy where we were near the coast, we enjoyed beautiful sunny weather with no fog. For me, it was a chance to relax and read. On our return route home, we drove up the eastern edge of Tomales Bay and scouted out other possible painting locations for his Marin/Scapes paintings. Sterling is especially drawn to the boats in Marshall as well as some of the surrounding scenery in that area. For a long time, he has been wanting to repaint the Dairy Truck in Chileno Valley that he painted in 2005. That painting sold in 2006 at the Salute to the Arts Festival in Sonoma where it won second place.  Today Sterling is back painting in the Graton area where he regularly paints on Monday while my son takes classes. I am trying to get out our spring postcard mailing and e-mailing plus get together cards and prints for our first show in West Portal, San Francisco this weekend.

Well today I got to enjoy a sunny day of painting on a farm outside of sebastopol (same location I painted "Chicken Run".)

As I painted I was surrounded by friendly...yes chickens. I had to watch where I stepped being that I would often find my little friends milling around and between my feet.

This time I included goats into my painting. One of them seemed to pose for me while I painted. She must have known that I was admiring her for art sakes. I'm always happy to find a willing participant.

Our art festival season is starting to come together.We received word yesterday that we were accepted into West Portal Art Festival in San Francisco at the beginning of April and the Walnut Creek Art Festival at the end of April. We are expecting to find out about the Carmel Art Festival today. I'm planning to get more of our calendar on the website today or tomorrow. We are not doing the Napa Valley Mustard Place Marketplace this year or the Art & the Source Open Studios.

This is our first year doing the West Portal show. It's a sidewalk show with Pacific Fine Arts, the promotor for several of our other shows. We've had mixed results with their sidewalk shows. We have done will in Walnut Creek (which also has some booths) and Montclair, but not in Menlo Park. We dropped the Menlo Park show this year. The crowds have been low and very very few people who came by seemed to know it was taking place.We hope that West Portal will be different. We think that seascapes will do well. Sterling has several from his recent trip to Carmel, plus some from Sonoma. We are making a giclee of Variety of Rock (12" x 16"):


I'm wondering if Sterling's cityscape painting from the Alameda Plein Air Paintout last July (Quick Draw, 12" x 9") might do well or his old cars.


I'm guessing that the tractors might not be as popular, but the rural scenes might. Sterling will not be able to paint in the Alameda Plein Air Paintout this year because he was invited to participate in the Door County Plein Air Paintout in Wisconsin. The rural landscape there will be a perfect venue for him and a new market. We hear there are lots of old tractors.