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I painted five plein air pastel paintings in Baxter State Park, on four different surfaces. I liked the sanded surfaces, the archival Evolon fibered paper, but not the Ampersand Pastelbord, which I purchased for its oblong shape, but upon which I couldn’t do what I wanted to do (so its result is not shown).

I could paint a zillion more paintings of this place, all with a different emphasis or abstracted feel. These, as most of my landscape paintings, are intended to be stylized, not literal, nor photorealistic.

While I did this, our daughter stitched together an intricate seed beed necklace featuring a sodalite stone at its center. This time together was sweet, quiet, meditative, and blessed.

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