Welcome to a painting adventure in Portugal

 I'll be arriving in the Algarve on January 4, 2022 and the painting adventure begins.  I'm bringing 3-4 changes of clothing and a suitcase full of gouache, painting surfaces and a very lightweight portable easel.   Maybe a small kit of oil paint in primary colors and a plan to pick up a drying agent and some solvent and oil in an art supply store in Faro.   With my with grippy-soled shoes, I hope to be walking along cliffs and beaches and recording -- in paint and digital image -- what I see.

I've never been to Portugal before and plan to be open to a lot of "never done this before" experiences along the way.  

As a blog, I couldn't resist the Pour Chew Gal title after reading and variously loving and despising the 2007 memoir by Elizabeth Gilbert -- no relation whatsoever! --  Eat, Pray, Love.  But I'm not going to Portugal to eat or pray or love.  I am going to pour (coffee and paint), chew (heaven knows what other than the light roasted crunchy peanut butter I'm putting into my checked suitcase) and, as for the "gal," that's me.  I love a pun, good or bad, so on to Portugal and Pour Chew Gal.

Stay tuned.  I've got 3 weeks to get my luggage organized, packed and curated down to essentials.

In the meantime, I have begun a checklist of things I need to get done and people I need to see, and my Westie dog and I are already exhausted at the effort.  Here we are, just back from a visit to NYC and awfully tired!