Brownsville

Another painting day---we visited Brownsville yesterday---the third oldest town in Oregon. An elderly gentleman buzzing around town on his red scooter informed me of this fact. Rode there with 3 other painters, somewhat reluctant since I'd painted there before and wasn't in the mood to do buildings. I wandered the town dragging all my supplies up and down neighborhoods and downtown looking for that ideal spot & ended up in a park I'd never seen before. Leaving my stuff I went to explore hoping to find a vista or view that inspired me. Quick look showed me just ball fields, play grounds and picnic shelters until I headed for what I was hoping would be a stream. I discovered 2 of my carpool pals happily painting away on the banks of the Calapooia river---car parked nearby! Yay! I was thrilled to find a marvelous view and that I'd not need to haul all my crap back up the hill I'd just descended! We worked a couple of hours before heading back to our meeting site where we enjoyed everyone elses paintings, then as we took off for home, Tom our driver offered to take Ross to see where we'd been painting. Ross had worked on a terrific ink drawing of one of the downtown buildings. As we pulled up to "our" spot in the park, we noticed a straw cowboy hat, tackle box and bucket near the picnic table where Tom had been working---yep, it was his stuff! Dee & I had headed to the bathroom before we'd left, and Tom graciously picked us up there, so I hadn't been able to do my quick once over of where we'd been working before Tom left. I knew my stuff had been packed up, but never realized Tom was leaving a bunch of his stuff there! He was pleased it was still there, and we hung out chatting with other painters that had come over after our lunch gathering to see where we'd been working.

Here's the southern river view that I painted:



And my pal Tom, working away in watercolor---looking north---note the straw hat on the picnic table---and a glimpse of the open tackle box full of paint...:



And lastly, here's a cool house in Brownsville---we had our "show & tell" outside---you can see Tom's painting and mine in the lower left corner:



I'll try to get a shot of my painting later today and post it---I'm real pleased with it!