As a people, Oregonians are equipped to deal with rain, not heat. When it gets hot, we melt. We melt especially painfully when it goes from raining to 100+ degrees inside a short number of days.

This is the current state of the dog.

The cat is already so thin (he’s old) that he may just be a little puddle of hair some place in the house.

And in the middle of this oven, I trekked out to Barn Owl Nursery on Saturday to paint for the Willamette Valley Lavender Festival with friends Sandra Pearce and Cathy Cramer.

The “painting window” is pretty short on this festival. This weekend and next weekend are the only times that were listed as painting days, though I know other artists are trying to hit one (or even two) farms a day, even on week days (oh, to be retired…) Paintings must be turned into the show July 3, so there is a definite sense of urgency to our efforts.

I signed up, but I have not yet mentally committed to turning in a painting. It makes me feel better; if I don’t have something I’m proud of, I can back out. Yes, I’m a coward.

Saturday the proprietor of Barn Owl Nursery was nice enough to let the artists arrive a little early, so we arrived in the comparative cool of 8:30.

The owners were out doing a little harvesting of fresh lavender so they could demonstrate things like distilled lavender and lavender lemonade.

I stuck with my intention of working on value sketches before moving to paints. My overall impression is that this is good, but I need to be putting a little more into it and also working on design before I start.

First Sketch – Morning Shadows

Second Sketch – Morning on the Oak

 

Right now, this one is my favorite. I like the composition, the glow, and the values.

Third Sketch – no name yet

As you can see, I got pretty distracted about here.I did a background for a vertical and ended up tearing off the top path to turn it into a little abstract.

It was about 11:30 at this time and i was sweating just sitting in a chair and painting. A few more minutes and I told my friends that i was calling it a day. They took a break, too, and we all went to lunch in air-conditioned splendor with ice-cold water as the largest part of the menu.

Today was dog training class. By the time that was over, it was too hot to do much of anything. I ran some errands around town (along with all other humans), but going from an air conditioned store back to a car with a steering wheel hot enough to scald hands made me reconsider the my plan.

I sat down in my studio (not air-conditioned, but also not in the outside) and worked on finishing these paintings and prioritizing the rest of the studio.

Let’s just say I need to get to work!