"Spring on the Mountain"   
30" x 40" by Kathleen Elsey Sold
As seen in Plein Air Magazine, Dec. 2004

If you have been following my work over the past fifteen years, you know this is another version of "Dave's Vineyard." from my barn looking North to the top of Sonoma Mountain. Actually, it's not my barn anymore. I moved from Sonoma in August 2003, and now find myself painting a series of memories of the beautiful mountain which I came from. Sometimes I feel like I was born there. Right now the mustard is in bloom and it is so green. It is paradise and this crystal clear Spring day is one of my fondest memories of my time there.

For my four years on the mountain, I taught "Brush with Live Painting Workshops." I had a huge two-story barn, and this is the view out of the top floor "windows." I say windows, but there was no glass- just a hole in the wall. There was also no heat, no sink, no electricity for my first couple of years there.

It was truly like a "retreat" every day when I walked the path from my home to my barn studio.

I have fond memories of the painting workshops we had there. So many great painters from Sonoma came to study with the new girl on the mountain. When I had my first open studio in the barn in 2000, a couple of painters asked me if I taught workshops. Thanks to them, I started a list of interested painters until I had ten, then was my first workshop.