Being Productive

 We are making wonderful progress. Each artist is focused on completing various projects, yet everyone takes time to share and encourage each other. Every medium seems represented from oils, to watercolor, acrylics and encaustics. This is how much table space I have - two 8 foot tables per artist.

 Here are just a few of the paintings being pumped out by everyone. I just put away all the mixed media supplies last night and have started painting outside. I'll post them later. But just to give you an idea of how the creative juices are flowing I finished four small paintings so far today and we still have several hours to go.  This is a blast.

One wall where wet paintings go up to dry.

 So it's the end of our first full day at the art retreat. There are seven of us so there is plenty of room to spread out. Everyone is doing something different. Several of the artists have come here many times for both the retreats and the workshops. Here are some of the painted papers I am working on. This is new for me. I am really having fun just playing with the liquid watercolors to see what they can do.

 Here is a shot of the studio. If you want more info check out their site at

Hudson River Valley Art Workshops .

This is one of the pieces I finished today. The food is awesome - homemade blueberry pie and banana saffron ice cream tonight, AND there is homemade chocolate for sale. 

Visitors

For the last few days we have been having this little family of two fawns and their mother visit us just before dinner. I took this photo from our deck and was really surprised how well the zoom works. I got this Canon Power Shot 5x20 about 2 years ago and it is my favorite camera so far. The deer are so brave. They walk all over the neighborhood helping themselves to whatever they fancy.

I am off to a self directed art workshop at  Greenville Arms Art Workshops, in Greenville, New York. Usually they have instructors, either for painting or fiber arts, but this is for people who just want some focused time without instruction to create.Two years ago I took a three day workshop with Carol Marine which was fabulous. I am all packed and ready to go. Not sure if I can blog from there, but I will if I can. 

Here's a few more pages from my sketchbook. the one on the right was done while my son and I where thinking about food and how to have a show on.Food Network. When I am scraping the bottom of he barrel and don't know what to cook I go into my magic cupboard (the pantry) and see what is in there that I can use to whip up a meal. Dan got the idea of "Midnight Madness" making munchies from the magic cupboard. I thought that was pretty funny and that's where the sketch came from.

Speaking of sketchbooks, I went to our local art store: The Art Store  yesterday to see a demo presentation of a new line of sketchbooks. The company,  Stillman & Birn is only a year and a half old. Their goal is to be the best line of skechtbooks out there. I am in love with these new books. They come hardbound and spiral bound. The hardbound books can lay COMPLETELY FLAT! All the books take all softs of wet media including spray paint. So I am excited to experiment with mine.

My Buddy

 So, no painting today because I take care of my friend's grandson on Thursdays. She gets a break and I get some little kid fun time! I am waterlogged after two hours in the kiddy pool at the YMCA, but it's worth it at the end of the day to hear," I had a great day with you today, Dawn!" Melts my heart.

 I thought I'd share another picture of another buddy of mine- Mr. Gus. He is my side kick. He loves to hang out with me wherever I go, and make sure I'm safe, and that I share all my good treats with him, and him alone. I did a quick sketch of him in pencil and then he moved. So I filled the rest in with flowers and doodles. Just look at that mug- who could resist thst face?

...........feed me, pet me , walk me, feed me...........

Birthday Cake Dilemma

So I've been working on the Spring still life again. It's 36 x 36". I paint a section at a time. I just added a delicious slice of chocolate cake because I wanted to represent all the spring birthdays in the family. The brown color of the frosting was actually tricky. I am posting this photo (did you think it was the painting?) so you can see how I decided to work with still life items that either get eaten (like this cake!) or perish quickly, like flowers. 

I set  up my object where it's going in the still life and paint from life as much as I can in one sitting.Then I make sure to take a photograph from exactly where I was standing to get the right angle. Then I can come back to the object and make corrections. I still feel like everything is painted from life. I am using the photos to see detail and check perspective, stuff like that. Think I'll have another slick of cake.

Backyard Vista

This is a pastel of the backyard, done earlier in the spring, before everything was burnt to a crisp. The neighbors have this one tree that is so yellow-green is the spring it looks like the foliage in fall. Their   Royal Red Maple is a brighter red also.