Was glad to be in Vermont, truly -- after it was ravaged by Tropical Storm Irene, I really wanted to support the state, spend money in its restaurants, eat maple candy and gawk at the glorious foliage. How fortuitous that I'd signed up for Susan Abbott's fall Vermont landscape workshop, I thought.

Well, we did the first three. The foliage (what there was of it) hid behind mists and drizzles and on-and-off downpours. Not the most auspicious weather for plein air landscapes. Despite my moodiness, and the bugs, and the mud, there was sketching. And painting. (Some outdoors, even.)

We stayed at Pie in the Sky B&B in Marshfield for the first two nights. They have sheep. (And a guard llama, which didn't stay in one spot long enough to make it into my sketchbook.)



Later in the week we stayed at Emergo Farms B&B, in Danville -- it's a dairy farm that supplies Cabot.



While it rained, we did exercises in the studio:







And when the clouds parted, we rushed outside hoping to avoid the ambush of sudden showers.





The rain helped paint this one:



It's hard to be spontaneous when faced with a sheet of Arches paper. I like this color sketch better than the actual painting I did right after.





We sketched and painted on lands private and public. People have a lot of land up there.







So? Go! Go wander Montpelier and buy art supplies at The Drawing Board, eat at Tip Top Cafe in White River Junction and Elements in St. Johnsbury. Bike the Kingdom Trails rain or shine. And at the end of the day, savor a maple creamy at Bragg Farm. Yum.