Well I’m still banned from Facebook and Instagram. Still mad about it. Still have no idea why. I put in for a review and still nothing. No news on that front except that apparently FB is losing a lot of users, so not sure if this is by design or because people are getting fed up. We shall see I suppose.

With all of  my new found extra time lol, I have been painting away! I have an event that I committed to paint 5-6 pieces for that is happening next week, those pieces I will share next week but they are almost all completed!

I belong to an Art Guild where I live and most of the artists are more of a fine art bent. This is actually good for me as I’ve been trying to stretch myself a bit. I took a watercolor portrait class awhile back and really found it interesting. This week we were blessed to have Kathy Tate with us for a demo and then a 3 hour workshop to show us some of her painting tips. She does amazing work that can be found HERE and is an award winning oil painter.

We painted a still life that included a ‘terrifying’ glass jar lol. It was a short workshop and we didn’t draw anything on the substrate, just observed the objects and used a paintbrush to outline them and then started painting. It was both scary and exhilarating at the same time. I knew time was short and I was worried that my painting wouldn’t look anything like the display but I painted away leaving the jar until last. I only had a short amount of time left in class and I quickly painted the jar. That was my mistake, I painted a jar, I didn’t paint what I saw. That was my huge takeaway from the workshop, paint what you actually see. I took a photo of the display and when I got home I ‘erased’ (one of the cool things about working in oils) the jar and concentrated on painting what I saw. My second attempt was soooooo, much better! I will continue practicing with this medium and pushing myself. Not going to give up acrylics/mixed media, but doing something completely different is really a good thing.  I’m learning that a lot lately;-)

Copper Pitcher 11×14 oils (updated work)