There are many different goals for those going on the Horn Island trip.  For me, the most important thing was to have an opportunity to work directly from the landscape and I wanted to maintain the working momentum that I had going into the trip. Since last fall I have been working a lot and have been encouraged with what I have done.  I didn't want to reduce the scale of what I was doing so I determined that I would bring 22x30" sheets out to the island. This was a pain.  Getting paper that size out there and back through the open boat rides and keeping it dry in the rain was an accomplishment. Heck, just keeping the wind from creasing it or ripping it up when I was working wasn't easy.  I had a cardboard box in which watercolor paper was shipped to me and so I coated it with several layers of acrylic medium. This sealed the surface and allowed me to keep the paper flat.  The box also served as a good drawing board as you can see in the photos below.  The photos were taken by James Carey, an MCA alum and another Horn Island veteran.  The drawing that I was working on in the photos was the most complete of those that I started on the island.  I only had to touch up a few things in the studio. A picture of the finished drawing on my studio wall is at the bottom of this blog entry.