Garden Hat

Garden Hat
12" x 12" oil on wrapped canvas
$295.00 + $10. s/h
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I recently realized that I take a lot of photos of people in hats.  Maybe it was seeing all of the people in Ecuador wearing hats and taking so many photos of them that made me aware of this.  When looking back through my reference pictures I've got hats galore!  Cowboy hats, garden hats, baseball caps, painting hats, Panama hats.  You'll be seeing more hat paintings in the future!

From The Roof

From The Roof

watercolor  6" x 6"

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This watercolor was painted from the rooftop of our hotel in Quito.  I took a small set of watercolors, as well as gouache, with me to Ecuador.  I only did a few watercolors, and in retrospect, maybe I didn't need to take both, but the watercolor set was very small and easy to tuck in.  

Because the elevation of Colorado Springs is 6,000 feet, it wasn't as challenging for us to acclimatize to the high altitude of Quito (8,000 feet) as for other travelers.  For that I was grateful as I know altitude sickness is not fun.  

Quito is the capital and 2nd largest city in Ecuador with a population of about 2.5 million.  It is surrounded by volcanos and sits on the eastern slopes of Pichincha, an active stratovolcano.   Quito has one of the largest, least altered and best-preserved historic colonial centers in the Americas.  Quito, and Krakow, Poland were the first World Cultural Heritage Sites declared by 

UNESCO in 1978.

Views from one volcano top across Quito and the valley to several other volcanos.

The Cathedral and colonial center of Quito

Across The Street

Across The Street

gouache  6" x 6"

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This was the view "Across The Street" from our Airbnb in Cotacachi, Ecuador.  Our b&b was right on Leather Street, the main street in town.  It was a wonderful location!  Besides corn, Cotacachi is famous for it's leather goods.  Up and down the street were dozens of stores with incredible items made out of leather:  purses, luggage, shoes, hats, jackets and more.  There were factories and rooms where some of the products were made that were open for visitors.

The architecture of Cotacachi was interesting.  It did not have a beautiful colonial center like many towns in Mexico, Central America & South America.  It has been slowly rebuilt with cinderblock buildings amongst the remaining colorful, older houses.  Because so many ex-pats are moving to Ecuador there were several gated communities of very new homes where many of the gringos lived.

Rich Land

Rich Land

gouache  6" x 8"

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This is the last corn field that I painted in Ecuador, although I could have painted
 dozens more!  

The produce and agriculture in Ecuador is pretty amazing!  I read that Ecuador is one of the cradles of world agriculture in that it has rich soil, wonderful weather (it's right on the Equator) and plenty of sunshine. (Although while we were there they had more rain than in the past 5 years combined!).  We saw and ate so many fruits that were new to us.  We had so many delicious glasses of juice every day!  We always felt healthy.  I also read that there are 100s of varieties of corn in the Andes.  In fact, in Quito there is a corn market!

Country Side Walk

Country Side Walk

gouache  6" x 8"

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I'm continuing to post the small studies from our winter in Ecuador.  I'll also start posting my plein air and studio work that I've been working on back home in Colorado.

One of our day trips while in Cotacachi, Ecuador was to the Condor Park, or Parque Condor, outside of Otavalo.  This park is an endangered bird rehabilitation & rescue center for the endangered Andean condor as well as raptors & owls;  there's even a golden eagle that was donated by a European zoo.  The park hopes to release the birds back into the wild, when possible.  The birds that cannot be released are kept at the park and are part of the daily educational bird show.  Many of the birds are released to fly during the show.  They are lured back with food, although one of the birds was gone a very long time!  The Park is situated with great views of Cotacachi & Imbabura volcanoes.

We took a cab up to the Park, but there were no cabs when we were ready to leave.  So, we started walking the 4 miles back to Otavalo.  It was a beautiful walk through the country side with crops of corn or furrowed fields on both sides of the dirt road.