A Place Called Innisfree

Here's a scene from a place called Innisfree Garden in Millbrook, New York.

Millbrook is a town in the eastern Hudson Valley in New York State. My wife drove us up there as a day trip one steamy August day several years ago. We went down a not very promising dirt road that the map said would lead to a nice garden. It did. 

Innisfree Garden Scene by Paul Creedon

An elderly gentleman relieved us of some cash and directed us around the sites. He looked relieved to have someone to talk to. What on earth the place had originally been I cannot imagine, but it had a lake and numerous stone terraces covered with plantings and connected by decaying stairways. Nothing about it made any sense, but I took pictures of everything with my old Canon Sure Shot. One of the photos later mutated into the pastel landscape painting here. 

A Small-Scale Pastel

The pastel is only 7" by 5", which meant I could interpret the scenery fairly loosely. On this occasion being a little messy was just the ticket to getting what I wanted. I wish I liked some of my other pastel landscapes as much. The stone wall in front gave me a lot of trouble, but the decision to do the foliage with simple chalk strokes was forced on me by the small scale. That part went quickly and easily and came off on the first try. If only all my paintings went as smoothly. 

After a couple of hours wandering through the garden we were both on the verge of passing out from heat exhaustion. We found a diner in town, and after being cold shouldered at first by some locals we managed to get a table and I had a very tall and frosty soda, a hot dog and a piece of Boston Cream Pie.  

I like the painting partly because I think it works, and partly because it reminds me of how good that first sip of coke tasted in the diner afterwards.