In yesterday's post I told you about Harbor Days in downtown Olympia this weekend. A yearly maritime celebration of tugboats, various crafts, etc. One of those vendors selling their talents is Harold W Johnson. He's been painting full time for forty five years. He's a member of The International Society of Marine Painters, as well as The Puget Sound Group of Northwest Painters. At first we started to walk by his tent, then something caught our eyes so we went in. There were various paintings hanging inside the tent and a table full of his work. The more we looked, the more we appreciated how very talented this man really is. I looked up and just outside the back of the tent there he was working on a painting. I thought this would be a great photo to show you all so I went back and asked him if he minded if I took his picture. He smiled and said "Sure go right ahead." I tried not to resize this photo down too much so you get a better look at his work. His paintings of the boats and their reflections across the water are amazing. I have to say though, one our favorites was his self-portrait.

Every Labor Day weekend Olympia holds "Harbor Days", a three day maritime celebration. The coolest tugboats are cleaned up and brought out on display, vendors set up tents selling their crafts, people stand in mile long lines to get an elephant ear smothered in the topping of their choice and it's just a good time for all. The sky was pretty dark when we showed up this afternoon. It sprinkled a little here and a little there, but waited to really rain on us until we all had our food in our hands and were standing out in the open eating. We quickly found shelter under the awning of one of the vendors where we stayed pretty dry. A half hour later the clouds moved on and the sun came back out. We made our way along the crowded docks checking out the goodies for sale. It looked to us like the turnout was good today. For more info on Harbor Days click here.