The Pastel Society of Maine held a wonderful Pastel Plein Air Retreat in Maine last week. We rented a Vrbo on a Pemiquid Pond, and painted a lot, took tons of reference photos, ate well, played Five Crowns in the evenings, and laughed much.
This is a great group, and most on this retreat are fellow blog readers along with you. I’m grateful the first two women shown below and I already have plans to paint together on Monhegan Island in September, or I’d be more bereft this was over.
Other than the baklava made with a participants’ own honey, I did the cooking. I made them my Vegetarian Chili, my Mustard Roasted Tilapia, my Vegetable Lasagna, and my Flourless Chocolate Cake. We also went to Moody’s Diner, which is apparently a tradition of over 100 years, where I had my first Haddock Rueben. Those berry cookies you see in the photo below, purchased in a bakery in Portland were amazing too.
I painted nine paintings, one of which I posted the other day. I’ll be sharing the rest on the blog by and by. Some of mine are impressionistic, while others are more abstract landscapes. At the bottom of this post I share photos of some of the paintings by others on the retreat.
We painted in some gorgeous spots, most notably Pemiquid Point, Rachel Carson’s preserve (where I painted an abstract landscape titled Silent Spring), and Marble Beach. I’ll eventually get a post up on each location; I have tons of photos to process, mostly of rocks. In this post are the miscellaneous photos not specific to those locations, including photos of the “pond” we stayed on, and seagulls having a feeding frenzy at a fish ladder we visited.
I feel like my summer has kicked off with a bang! Now, after a few days of re-entry, I’m ready to hunker down and do what needs to be done. I have big ideas of what this summer can hold, but I’m also going to try to remember my New Year’s resolution to get margin.
Meanwhile, I am grateful for this time to revel in nature and enjoy fellowship with some remarkable women.
Mary Beth Morrison
Sharon Gorman
Sara Ostrov
Ruth Van Dine
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4 Comments
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Looks cool and refreshing. How I envy you all. HOT HERE!
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Wow Polly. Thanks for the wonderful photos. What a splendid, joyful, happy time spent together. Thanks to Ruth and her diligence in finding our lovely home and organizing us. So grateful for good friends and good times 💖💕
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O How very Wonderful it all is!! Glad for you and your pastel-buddies…for the wonders of Nature and friendships and
joy in time together and creativity and oh gosh so many good things! What a gift to give yourselves, to accept from the Universe! Kudos to you all!Come sit on my Santa Cruz hillside deck and paint!! Why nott?
Enjoying a little more Dominion today! Hope you, too!
Love, Sue
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It’s so fun to see these great photos and relive the retreat. Thank you!
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