Watercolor Journal Vacation 1990

by Cecilia Price

Watercolors done on site

Stuff I had with me

Liberte by Arches Watercolor Tablet

Pelikan Pan Paints

TV Dinner Table

Jug of Water

Brushes, Sponges, and Paper Towels

We arrived at our hotel at Helen, Georgia. A hot, humid day in August of 1990, and after we got settled in our room, my husband, Charlie, and I looked out to see a terrible rain storm. I wanted to paint! I was pretty disappointed that it rained as soon as we got there. But not to be daunted, I found a flower catalogue that was my mother's and began to paint something from that!

Here it is!

After we left the motel, we went camping. We found a nice campsite outside Helen, GA and we prepared to set up camp. It was so hot and humid. Charlie went to the little store nearby, and I set up to paint. This is the first outdoor painting at that camp site, it was the little road that we were on to our campsite. You can almost feel the sweat and heat in this painting!

Later that day, Charlie wanted to fish the lake and I wanted to paint. So we did. This is the result of that!

We went to see the falls at Anna Ruby Falls, near Helen, GA

This was my impression of that, done later in a room we took at Dahlonega, GA from memory.

August 5, 1990 - We ehceked into the Dahlonega Inn after checking out the town. We found it interesting and fresher than Helen. There was a singer on a lawn there who looked and sounded like Willie Nelson. Dohlonega is an old Gold Rush Town.

After we went to Park Place to eat (excellent) we went back to our room, (114) embarrassed because neither of us had remembered the key.

We walked around - this motel has a spectabular view of the town from the parking lot - it's way up a hill from the town down in the valley - and the sun was going down, so I painted it. The painting is a very quick impression of that.

 

A minute later it had totally changed! The sky was dark and the town was lit up and appeared to float in a golden mist. They use golden lights there at night. To the right was the Gold Museum with the gold dome, but I missed that.

Back in our room, it's dark out, and I'm still wanting to paint. So I get out that flower catalogue again, and paint an iris called "Thriller" and not satisfied, I just played with the colors and paper that I had. Here is that one.

Later that same year, we went to camp at a place called Bama Park on Lake Martin in Alabama. The following are a series of things I did at that place. They are not all here because I found a note in the journal that says I sold one to somebody on the spot for $20, called "Ski Beach" and I don't even remember what it looked like! Sept. 1, 1990

Pier

House Across the Lake

The owner of Bama Park at that time asked me to paint his house.

That evening, all the day visitors were gone. Robin, my daughter, and I decided to take a swim in the lake. Then I went out on the pier and painted the sunset.

Sunset

Lifeguard, Dana Morgan, sat on the fence, watching the water the next day, unaware that he was being painted. Sept. 2, 1990

Danger Watch

This next painting is a place we saw and we stopped a minute and I painted it. It turned out to be a study for a later painting called "Road to Glory".

Road to Glory

Now, it's 2005, my daughter is all grown up and lives far away. I'm a widow since 1994. These paintings and the memories they evoke are very precious to me. I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed painting them!

Cecilia Price