And then it rained

During the 2 weeks of my Artist in Residency, I spent a significant amount of time at North Bar Lake, just a shade north of Empire. Its a beautiful area; dunes, shoreline, and a small lake that connects to Lake Michigan. Usually. Not this year. In the many years that I've been going up to North Bar this is the first year that I've ever seen the lake levels so low that that the Big Lake and the "little" lake are separate.

The day this particular peice was painted was one of the very few cloudy/rainy days of my Residency. I love a moody day, so I was excited by this development, especially after days on end of sunny, 85 degree, windy, and bitey-fly days. (There's nothing like standing on a beach in hot windy weather with jeans on, plus a towel around your legs to keep from being biten! And thats after you've hiked carrying all your gear to just the right spot.) Anyway, this day was ideal for painting. I schlepped my gear to the spot, got set up, started painting and it started to rain. Then it started to rain a little harder. The water was beading up pretty good on the canvas. I quickly packed it all in and marched back up to my car, only to have it quit raining. So I did what any painter worth their muster would do.....I marched back down to the lakeside and resumed painting. Quickly, as I could see yet another wall of rain heading across the lake straight for me. Between migrating my gear between the lake and the car, I managed to complete this painting in about 45 minutes.