"Rex Beach Road - 12/12/09" -- plein air field study -- oil on canvas panel -- Margie Guyot

At last - a sunny day! We'd had blizzards since Tuesday night. Something like 15" of snow on the ground. I hadn't driven anywhere since our band concert Tuesday night, so today everybody and his brother had errands to run. I finally got my Soltek into the Flex and drove up US-31 toward Charlevoix. I turned west onto Rex Beach Road and thought this view was pretty interesting. No mountains here; only rolling hills, trees and lake. I love the rare days we have sun here because that's when the blue shadows occur.

It was a rather balmy 28 degrees, but it was also very windy. I was so glad I'd put on my heavy-insulated snow pants and heavyweight down coat. Otherwise it'd have been miserable.

This road leads down to one of my favorite painting spots: Rex Beach, which is one of the Antrim Creek Natural Area parks. The parks aren't plowed here in winter, so I probably won't be able to get down to the lake to paint unless the snow melts. Somebody decided they should pay something like $35,000 to put up some "interpretive" displays. I think more people would have preferred doing without the interpretive displays -- and having at least one of the area parks plowed at least once a month here.

I look forward to doing more still lifes, but at the moment my studio is very cluttered. I moved a ton of things out of a side storage room and took several days to insulate that room. My neighbor Jerry has been helping me build storage shelves for my large canvases and frames. Once this project is over, I can put everything away -- and get back to painting still lifes. Itching with ideas!