St. George Botanical Garden

I'm sorry that I've haven't blogged about the Palletteers the last two weeks but I was off island for almost a month and couldn't do the posts. I'm back in the groove (kinda sorta) now and part of my return to normalcy was painting with the Palletteers yesterday morning. We started a l ittle earlier because we'd decided to stay for the Botanical Garden's OUT TO LUNCH... AT THE GARDEN which was to begin at 11:30AM. As it turned out, we actually had until noon before we sat down to eat, but between greeting people, catching up on what I'd missed while away, and getting myself and my painting mind-set reacquainted, I actually needed that extra time. I arrived at the Garden around 8AM in the midst of a Crucian gully-washer and sat in my car with fingers crossed, hoping there'd be a dramatic change in the weather... and SOON! My wish was granted and the sun came out and stayed out for the remainder of the morning. Mother Nature does love the Palletteers! The Garden provides us with many different painting subjects, so I always spend time walking around, seeing what catches my eye, and taking lots of pix before I decide what I feel like capturing on my canvas that morning. The next few hours seem to fly by! Though I'm tuned-in to the sounds of the area's fauna and sometimes-chatter of my fellow artists, I'm usually so focused on overcoming the challenges my painting presents me that when it's time to stop, I often wonder where the time went! It's always with enjoyment that I view our final efforts because I've found that even when I paint the "exact SAME thing" alongside someone else, our results are always uniquely our own! Also, what I might have viewed beforehand as a "boring" subject, another artist in our group has rendered so beautifully that I'm in awe. What fun! Yesterday's Show and Tell was no disappointment! Lunch was a great follow-up featuring a watermelon salad with baby arugula, feta cheese and ginger dressing; grilled pork flat iron steak marinated in herbs and yogurt; with a trio of mango, banana and coconut ganache for dessert. Frequent refills of iced tea accompanied the meal. Yum!













Ginger