Its Booked!

Blue Hill, here we come!

I rented this place on Blue Hill Peninsula (Maine) for a week in June. As you know, I've been looking into it. I want to go paint lupines by the ocean as posted in Booklets.

Well I finally made my decision on where to stay. One that wasn't very hard to make. Just look at this wonderful cottage??? no... house that I found! How could I resist? Affirmative confirmation from an artist friend was all I needed to clinch the deal. As soon as I received her phone call saying she would come, I was on the phone reserving it. What a beautiful doll house to go play in!

Pack your paints Baby, here we go!

I don't think it will be difficult to find a few other takers to join us. Martine-Alison, my wonderful artist friend in France, is even thinking of it. Buy your plane tickets, honey. Let's make it a reality! A painting holiday with wonderful artists friends... Just what the doctor ordered.

How could I resist this wicker sunroom or these charming bedrooms?

There's four in all!

The kitchen is huge and fully equipped.

We even have two outdoor decks that run the length of the house.

Carol, the owner, was most pleasant and helpful. She informed me of a lupine festival that will be going on when we arrive. She'll be leaving a brochure, which by the way, has maps and directions to all the largest lupine fields in the area. Perfect!

I must really be ready for a vacation. I leave Wednesday for a week in sunny Florida and I'm booking a place for June...

I told Mike, I must need a break more than I realize.

Warm thoughts

Full Pots

Original oil painting by Susan Roux

January is quickly coming to an end. A substantial chunk of winter is behind us. We awoke to "0" degrees. That's fahrenheit. For all my foreign readers, -17.7 c. is the equivalent! Brrrrrrrr...

I hope you're all keeping warm!

Anyone want to move to Maine? In all fairness the temperatures are predicted to rebound to 17 (-8c.) in full sun later. For most of the year, its a great place to be... Plus with these cold temperatures, its the perfect excuse to curl up to someone you love in front of the fire. Just don't forget your gloves when you go out!

I choose to think warm thoughts. Join me? After yesterdays post with tiny petunias and Rahina q.h. commenting from Scotland's deep freeze, I've decided warm thoughts are needed in many places. Of course Australia may be commenting on how its mid-summer, to rub it in... (but we can pay them back come July)

I chose to post two images for warm thoughts. The first, Full Pots, is a painting I finished with a class this fall. I have to say, not only was it a challenge for me to simplify it for them, it was also a challenge for them to paint! We worked a long time on it and their results were wonderful! After stringy petunias, I was ready to see robust reds exploding out of their pots. A pleasant reminder that summer returns...

The second image is a candle and a fire. No this is not my home. Its an image from one of the spectacular "cottages" we stayed in while in Ireland. Nearly the whole wall was stone. Beautiful!

So now you can imagine your heat anyway you'd like. A sunny summer's day or curled up by a warm fire. Either way, I wish you warm thoughts, warmth in your heart, and a creative spirit that helps you produce exciting things to warm the hearts of your viewers.

Stay warm my friends and remember. We could be at the start of winter rather than well into it...

(photographs by Michael McAllister)

Awfully awful, part 2

Getting to our cottage in Co. Offaly proved to be no easy task. We'd just finished seeing Luka Bloom (http://www.lukabloom.com/) in Galway, so our travel began after 10:00 at night. Our GPS took us through dark, narrow back roads for over two hours. The town was Shinrone. Our directions to the cottage were from Dublin, the complete opposite direction. There aren't any number addresses in Ireland so a GPS is relatively useless in finding your exact destination. Luckily a tiny pub was open. I went in to ask for directions as we had been driving aimlessly through dark unmarked streets following directions that said, "where the large clump of trees are, turn right."

Ciaran (a friend) and I went inside with picture in hand, hoping someone knew where this property was. Everyone was standing as if in a huddle around the bar. It seemed to be an intimate local gathering. Only one man paid attention to our entrance. Happily he recognized the house immediately. I felt relief run down my body. Then he began to talk...

I must have had him repeat the directions five times. I couldn't understand him at all! It was as though he was speaking a totally different language. I remembered what the young barkeep had said about such a heavy accent. She wasn't kidding. Oh my! I returned to the car completely unsure whether or not I had the directions to get us there. Luckily I did.

The door was locked. It was dark. There was a tiny note written on the door. Mike fumbled to try to read it. Obviously it was written in the same language the man spoke in the pub. As he tried to stumble through it, I reached my hand into a nearby flowerpot and there were the keys! "How in the world did you find those?" Who knows. A few recognizable words he read must have sent me there.

Unlock the large door and enter, bags in hand, ready to drop from fatigue and stress. Flick on the light and we dropped our bags in awe! It was a long stone building from the outside and inside it was completely open except for the bath and bedroom on the end. Genuine art hung on the walls. Old pottery urns were in the deep set windows. Large white paper balls ( I mean like three feet wide, large) hung down from the two-story high ceiling. Inside were lights. It was magical. Big glowing balls hovering in the vast open space, illuminating it beautifully. Forgetting our fatigue we began to dance around like children. It was bigger than most dance halls. Huge really and completely artsy. Renting these cottages was amazing. It was a surprise every time. You never knew what you would actually find, where you would actually live, but I must say we never expected to find this!

So far it seemed the perfect place for an artist to land...