Workshops

Today I made a decision to not teach anymore. I have written to all the workshop groups through 2012 and pulled my name. My health has been going down and I just had to make a call. My Drs said to remove stress to try help things so this was my first step. It is not easy as I have worked very hard to get to this point but I feel I had very little choice. I do not want to teach and not be able to give it my all. I just wanted you to know what was going on. I still will do the blog and I hope to continue to paint every day. But I will also now find time to take breaks and take care of myself. I know when one door closes another opens and I will prepare myself for what that next thing might be. Who knows...I just need to keep a positive attitude. Thanks for listening.

Loon Rescue

It is only the beginning and we are not ready to accept other art but this is where we are right now...figuring out how to place images on the tshirts. We will add other products as well...but thought you would like to see where we are!~ I will keep you posted as the website and other things get closer to done!
http://www.zazzle.com/be_my_voice_tshirt-235895074491973032 

Loon Rescue

Getting ready to start Loon Rescue most likely sometime next week! I have done the image and might offer it both ways  to see which one people like...but thought I would show you first and see which you seem to like best!  I think having the graphics around the image helps it become more of a tshirt design...that is my opinion...and it goes with the heron I did with the Oil Spill.

Workshop Demo

This fall I attended a workshop in Page, AZ with three other painting friends. It was by David Drummond and we went to see how he paints his signature water. It was great fun and you saw the pictures of where we went rafting etc down the Colorado...but I had not posted the demo we did in class. Mine is not done as I chose to walk with him as he problem solved for each student which was very interesting. I think these dramatic wave reflections are really his signature style and so recognizable as his so that one would not be tempted to really do them in a painting. Besides you would need large rocks to work for this as if I would put such large dramatic reflections under the loon for instance, it would be over kill! But since I never get to go take classes this was great fun and I hope to do more of this as it just is so fun to be a student and not the teacher! ha~

Loon Rescue tshirt

I am working on a design for loon rescue to put on tshirts and boy have I had troubles! I thought I just wanted the image...but then added more water and then felt I should mask the entire loon in order to get the washes on the water right...well I lifted the mask and lost most of the color! Dear Phyllis who reads my posts mentioned there are some masks that do not lift the color but since I use so much transparent paints who knows if anything would have worked. I just went about this backwards. I will post what happened and you will see how the colors went from black to gray...and then I reworked it but now am having troubles with the horizon line from some bleeding in trying to do all that fixing. I really do not want to remask the wings and start over again but will see...so will post how bad it was when the mask was removed...and where I have it back to now...and then hopefully in a few days or less I can show you the final image...gotta think how to do it! I like images for tshirts to be more graphic so that is the next step! Hopefully it will be done soon and I can move on! Sorry the pictures are reversed...the lower one is when the color got lifted and the top one is where I am at now.

Page, Arizona

I just returned from Page last night. I only had a few days at home after teaching in Calgary, Alberta so I was exhausted but this was a dream trip and nothing could stop me! I met several of my friends there and we had a wonderful time. I do really believe I will return there to paint again as this was a stunning place. I actually had no idea that this was where people started alot of the rafting trips we so often hear about. I rafted for 3 1/2 hours on calm deep rivers...where I got out you could start the rapids and go for 14 days!!! I highly recommend this to anyone who loves landscapes. I took 350 pictures on this river and I could do it again and take just as many I am sure! I am posting one to show you from above a boat in the water below to give you some scale of what we rafted through.