Bye Bye Florida!

Bye Bye Florida!

Beachway Avenue, New Smyrna9×12″Oil on Panel (c) Kelly Medford, 2011I decided to spend my last painting day in a place I really love, New Smyrna Beach. This is such a cool beach town, as someone I met on the road while painting here so eloquently put it, “one of the last Old Florida beaches.” Not being from Florida, I can’t really say how true this is or not, but I can say that this place was quiet and beautiful with the soft ocean breeze blowing through the sleepy streets. People seemed relaxed, walking their dogs, talking to the shopkeepers and having coffee. The downtown is pretty active and the bars open early, my kind of town!In my usual fashion I drove around with no preconcieved idea of what I wanted to paint and then I found this little side street, Beachway Ave and the light looking toward the beach just seemed to sum it up for me.As always I really enjoyed my time painting in Florida and look forward to future painting opportunities there. For now I’m back to Rome, where my heart is and inpiration of the eternal city is just calling out to be painted!