Classes

Wednesday, September 11, 2019

Dream... come true.

It started about 3 or 4 years ago... as I rekindled an old flame with art, specifically painting, I had a deep desire start in me to have a studio of my own.  A place I could create art, a place I could offer classes, a place I could discover things deep in my soul. I envisioned this studio in a lofty space overlooking an ocean. Well, not all parts of a dream are meant to be so when a large portion of the dream comes true you just have to realize there might be reasons for the little details to not be included. For example I don't like tidal waves so perhaps not being on an ocean is a saving Grace for me... who knows?

At any rate this summer I was presented with an opportunity to make the bigger part of my dream come true! A local church had previously rented an area of their building to a school. The school was moving to a new space and the church decided to see if any artists were interested in renting the now empty classrooms!  (Ya Think?!!) within 3 months, the spaces were all spoken for and rented out! .. and I was fortunate enough to have one of them. 24' x 30'  Ya!  that's what I'm talkin' about!


The rooms are spacious and half of them have windows overlooking green grass! A wonderful sight for an artist... calming... energizing...relaxing... all the things we need to make art.... or take a nap,... or both! LOL  So... On Sept 8th I had an Open House for my new studio ... below are some pictures taken by a friend. We had a lot more people later on, but these allow you to see some of the room as well... enjoy!



 

why is it so hard to center photos in here???




 
  

Winter Birch Trees

Yesterday I taught a class at our local college (ICC) on how to paint Winter Birch Trees. There are many, many birch tree paintings out there and they are almost ALL beautiful. This class was to demonstrate how I had painted this abstract background with the trees. It was a great time and I learned a few things along the way as well.


This was a painting I did last year and used several tools to make the spots, mostly fingers but also tried a few round brushes and other tools.I found out at that time just how long it takes to fill in a background. I had time between then and now to forget how long it took, but it reminded us yesterday LOL. As much as I love this painting, some of the results from yesterday's class took my breath away. First of all I stressed to them to make it their own. If they don't like certain colors, dont use them! If they wanted a sky & land background instead, then by all means do that instead of the dots and I got their permission to share their results with you. I will be doing another, based on the inspiration I saw here.



I want to zoom in a bit on these for you... and I took mine out of the mix. I must say I was also touched that they wanted a picture with me in it.. (that's a first!) and I'll post it below also.