Day 4-Taos

Day 4 found us on the road to Arroyo Hondo again. This time we stayed closer to the begininning of the road to paint in an area that offered views of the mountains, boulders that jutted out from the hills, and a small brook that ran in and out of the road.

Elizabeth and I were a little late getting out to paint. She had a headache so I waited for her to feel better before we headed out together. The others were all ready there and engrossed in their paintings. After walking around to see what had captured their eyes, we set up and began ours. The sky threatened to rain on us at any moment. The others finished and headed out for lunch but we continued to paint-suddenly we heard thunder. The sky was looking pretty black but we kept counting the seconds between thunder claps and continued on with our painting. Finally, I decided that I had captured enough of my subject and decided to start packing up. Elizabeth and I had just gotten everything into the car when the heavens opened up and a torrential rain came down in force. Whether we were just lucky, or we actually were good at predicting when the rain would start we will probably never know. The ride back was a little slippery as the road was not paved. In fact most of the roads off the main drag are not paved. They are a kind of mud/rock/rut thing.

In the afternoon, we all went our seperate ways and found places to paint clouds. I was able to set out under the porch by our room and paint to my hearts content until the rain started coming in sideways. I am posting a couple of my "sky" paintings here. The skies there are just gorgeous! There is no smog or city lights to interfere with them. The colors are incredible-I can see why so many painters flock there. I definitely can see the alure that beckoned Georgia O'Keefe to New Mexico.