The first October plein air painting expedition was to Tamworth, NH, at the Remick Country Doctor and Farm Museum. This was my third year participating in this annual fundraising event by the NH Plein Air painters for the benefit of the Museum. The museum is a working farm featuring lots of live animals, which is more fun than Canterbury Shaker Village. Alas, it rained all day. Only five or six artists had the persistence and fortitude to show up, and the wet paint sale at the end of the day drew few buyers.

The painting at the top of this page (“Rocky Pasture”) was painted from just inside the chicken barn, where gusts of wind would regularly splatter me with spray from the rain. The painting below (“Chicken Alley”) was more obviously painted inside the barn, looking down a hallway by rooms of chickens, who were also huddling inside, but you will have to take my word for that. That lovely sunlit opening at the end of the hallway? I lied.

The following Friday, we (NH Plein Air) headed to Holderness for a repeat visit to Tannenruh. Here is my take on Squam Lake from Tannenruh in the Fall.

Mid-October found us trekking up to Bartlett for the semi-annual Artists Getaway Weekend. My artist friend and high school classmate from Rhode Island and Florida, Mary Crawford Reining (still no website to link you to) bravely accompanied me. I say bravely, because the temperature was plummeting and the makings of a snowstorm were heading east. But given that forecast, we were very fortunate, and on our first day painting enjoyed the unusual vision of white-capped mountains rising out of brilliantly colored forests.

Above: View from the scenic overlook in Intervale–Mt. Washington Valley with Mt. Washington itself as the backdrop.

Above: Another view of Mt. Washington from a spot on Route 302 just inside Crawford Notch State Park, in a field where I have it on reliable authority lupines bloom in June. The purple flowers in bloom on this day are asters.

Above: Suspension bridge on Davis Path, off Route 302 in Crawford Notch.

Above: Another view from the Intervale scenic overlook. I believe that is Cathedral Ledge [now identified as Humphrey’s Ledge by more expert observers] in the upper left quadrant.

Above: View from Bear Notch Road overlooking the Route 302 valley. Mt. Washington is out of the frame to the left and the buildings of the town of Bartlett are behind the trees left of center. This small (6 by 12) painting was snatched from icy winds in only one hour–by far the worst conditions that we had to endure the whole weekend.

Before October would be over, I made two more painting trips to the Arboretum in Boston. More about the Arboretum project later.