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Gale force winds

Travel Painting Blog

Having found out where the hermit nun lives, I get up very early and walk to her chapel in the woods. I rather assumed she’d be an early riser but I think I arrive too early as the chapel is still locked. I ring a bell and she comes out and lets me in. A wonderful feeling of peace descends. After breakfast we are taken to a forest with ochre rocks – this is really challenging as the wind is gale force – so water and paper fly everywhere! But I suppose if you paint en plein air – you have to take this in your stride. Every morning before we start painting Mark shows us paintings by famous artists – today its the Fauves. The paintings that people do on this windy morning are really quite wonderful – everyone seems to have made a breakthrough. Mark hangs our paintings from the whole week in the studio and at 7pm David comes into the studio with a bottle of absinthe.