Galveston Paint Out

Blogger has changed its editing format and for the life of me, I cannot get it to publish both of my pics in one post. I will instead tell you one story in two posts. This is a shot of a paint out in Galveston that took place a few days ago. Our model stood in the gulf shallows while fishermen caught sharks in the same water right next to her, lightning flashed and thundered behind her, wind whipped her and rain pelted her. We endured the same punishment and also had sand fleas to contend with (but we didn't have to hold a pose :-)). The middle-ground people with their backs toward you were on the windward side and had so many sand fleas in their paintings, it was like viewing the scene through a thick screen. I was set up on the leeward side. I had fleas in my gear and in the paint on my palette, but none got stuck in my painting. There were still many little gem paintings that came from our efforts, and afterwards, we enjoyed wine and cheese, still in the rain, complements of our host, Bill Kalwick. If laughter were money, we would have made as much as the model, but she was the only one who actually got paid for working this day.