Winona Cottage is an original oil painting of one of the grand historic homes in Old Frontenac, MN. I painted this painting en plein air (on location) on a beautiful June day as part of the 2021 Plein Air Red Wing competition. Old Frontenac, MN is a little town that time forgot–terrible cell service and dirt roads included. It’s the kind of town where you’d expect to find a barefoot Huckleberry Finn painting fences.

Old Frontenac is snuggled in the cliffs of the Mississippi River Valley, just south of Red Wing, MN. It used to be a resort town with several spacious inns along the Mississippi River, with the smaller homes of the workers further inland. The resorts have all been converted to residences now. Old Frontenac is unique in that most of the homes, both large and small, have names. The name of this particular home is called “Winona Cottage”, hence the title of the painting.