“Santa Rosa Color!” (8” x 10”) was painted roadside when Nancy spotted a blue house grazed in a very “paintable light” and a great shade tree directly across the street. She coaxed me to pull over under the tree. Our backs faced one another as she painted from the trunk of the car and I painted from the driver’s side door! This was surely an opportunity to use my new QOR “bright palette” of watercolor paints to capture terrific “Curacao color” in Santa Maria and authentic local culture. Often, as I sit and paint, the sounds and smells of an area are memorable. The memory of this busy rural intersection is the ongoing short honking of car horns…and I am not sure if the “honkings” were warnings for other drivers at the busy intersection …or for two crazy ladies painting under a tree! Nancy’s suggestion to pull over at this “ordinary” location resulted in two very successful paintings…thanks Nancy! “Curacao Fishing!” (8” x 10”)was painted at Caracasbaai on Sunday after our visit to Santa Maria. The beach was very near our host housing in Jan Sofat, a lovely neighborhood surrounded by water. A row of about fifteen small fishing boats in the late afternoon sunlight with the backdrop of the mountains provided terrific subject matter, and very different from the typical Delaware landscape. Despite a 30 minute interruption of rain (quite common throughout the week) we were able to immediately return and complete the paintings. “The Temple”(11” x 14”) is a prominent downtown building, painted on the warm Saturday afternoon in the downtown. It was the first of my work completed during this trip and, painted as a potential commission; it sold prior to the opening of the PAC Gallery Exhibition on Tuesday evening. Great way to begin!
By the way, where is Curacao?