Waay behind!!

Ok..blogger followers have gently pointed out to me that I've not had any updates in a while. Sorry, sometimes real life kicks in detours me from my career path. A combination of a canceled class for my eldest child, snow days for my younger two, out of country traveling for my husband, and out of state visitors here (yay!) have left me a little..well..dizzy!

But I have been painting! Not quite a painting a day, but I'm not giving up yet. Here is a large watercolor I was inspired to create last week. These are the moments that an artist lives for. I was doing some art related paperwork one evening and just decided it was time to paint! It probably helped that my usual distractions were either in bed or Portugal but I didn't take time to analyze..I just searched through my box of photos, grabbed some paper, and completed most of this in less than 2 hours. The next morning I spent about an hour touching it up. It measures about 17" x 29" and when matted will fit into a 24" x 36" frame. It is titled Currituck and those North Carolina natives will recognize it as one of their coastal lighthouses.

I have a couple more paintings I finished last week I'll upload later. I'll also be doing a big web update over the next month so keep hitting "refresh" and see what I and my students have been up to!

Won't be 365 but close enough

Well, after 4 days I slipped. No PADs Friday, Saturday or Sunday. I think it will be rare that I will be able to paint on weekends but I don't have a good excuse for Friday (I have excuses..just not good ones!)

Today was my first day back full-time to the studio since the holiday break. I got 3 hours of painting in and some lesson planning. My classes start today with an Elementary class and an Adult Pastel class.

Painting wise I worked on a cat portrait I've been commissioned to do. I've been taking photos during the process in hopes of a doing a post of how I paint but I've been working so slow that I'll wait till closer to completion.

I did get my PAD done. I stepped up the size to a 5"x7" The 4"x6" is very, very small to me, especially with acrylic paint! The background to this lighthouse was done with a small palette knife. I really like the texture the knives create. The lighthouse and seagrass were done with a brush, but in a loose, impressionistic style to complement the sky.