I was browsing through Barnes & Noble a couple of weekends ago with Austin and Jacob when I ran across a watercolor book on painting the sky. Most of what I saw was pretty standard fare, except this:  I'd wondered for a while if any watercolorists had managed to capture the brightness of sunlight. Yes. Paul Jackson has. And it's not the only one in which he does this. The above picture doesn't let you close enough to see how he did it, but the book copy of this painting does, and I've filed that thought away. I've started painting a little landscape picture of the New England coastline to get back into painting. No bright sunshine to show, but it's nice to paint again. And speaking of sunlight, an overabundance of it and of the humidity here in Iowa will prevent the camping trip planned. The heat index is to climb around 108° over the weekend. Camping in a tent in a sauna won't be fun for the kids, so we're driving up to Ledges Park instead on Saturday just to play around in the water in the morning. Should be a lot of fun. I hope to take lots of pictures as painting fodder later this fall. Maybe I'll catch some good sunlight and try my hand at the brilliance of sunlight. | 
