Trip Report

Painting the Dunes

I'm back from a wonderful weekend on St. George's Island...an island located on Florida's 'Forgotten Coast'...and what an appropriate name for this part of Florida. We had the beach all to ourselves! We spend the days exploring some of the area's State Parks, searching for shells and other treasures and taking lots of photos! I took around 500 photos for future painting. My artist friend Jayne came with us and we had great intentions to do a lot of plein air painting.....but our days just seem to go by so quickly with all of our exploring and we didn't do as many as we had hoped. I did manage to do five and the one I have posted here was done on the beach in front of the house where we stayed. I was determined to paint something but it was a hike from the house through the woods and over the dunes to get to the beach. On Saturday afternoon, I gathered all of my gear and headed out . I found a shady place under the boardwalk to set up....but as luck would have it, I was missing one of my pastel boxes....so up and over the dunes back to the house...whew, this plein air painting is a lot of work!!! But I did manage to get into it and painted three. I will always remember the experience of being totally alone on the vast and very beautiful beach listening to the breeze and the waves lap the shore...painting in my bathing suit and having a swim in between paintings! Now that's the life! More tales of the trip to come..........