Idaho?

Here you see my latest effort at painting. It is a picture of a lake in Idaho. I have never been to Idaho, although I would certainly like to go sometime. You might be wondering why I chose to paint a picture of a lake and mountains in Idaho on a misty day when I normally paint sunny tropical scenes and/or sunsets. I am drawn to the tropics, but sometimes I like to branch out--not enough to try entirely new subject matter, mind you. I still mainly do landscapes because that seems to be what I do best. This one is a little different from my usual choices in that it is all in tones of blue, and that is the main reason I chose it. It has the colors of blue that go in my new bedroom and bathroom, so I thought it would be a good addition to the decor.

You might also be wondering where I got a picture of a lake in Idaho to paint. A few years ago, Doug brought me some travel catalogues that he had gathered when preparing for a Caribbean cruise. I loved the pictures and collected several of them that I saved to paint, and I actually painted several of them. That led me to send to other states for their travel guides, and soon I was inundated with colorful publications. Terry immediately suspected I was planning a vacation, but I gave up on that long ago. I paged through them all and marked pictures that I thought I may paint someday. Then I stored them in the closet. Last week when I was cleaning out the closet in anticipation of moving, I found all the books. I sat down and found all the marked pages and tore them out to keep in a folder to save space. This was on one of the pages, and it caught my eye for the aforementioned reason.

I must admit that I looked at all these guides quite wistfully, imagining that I would someday get to visit those states. Not likely, I imagine, for most of them, but at least I can enjoy painting the picturesque scenes from faraway places. Life is good...