If it hasn't been obvious by now Richard Schmid is my favorite living master artists. The way he works with paint and brushstrokes, lost and found edges ( I really could go on forever) is just an amazing melody across the canvas.

I picture myself painting in his presence someday (fingers-crossed) but until that day I continue to study his books and lessons and paint with him in my mind's eye.

Here I have included a mastercopy of his Lilie's demo painting I created. Below is Richard with the original work. I am far and away from recreating the painting to the standard I would like but I learned so much insight from recreating it. It is so much fun to find new ways to make the paint and brush work for you. How exciting!

It has been quite some time since I posted on here. My dog recently had to undergo surgery for a tumor that could have been malignant but it wasn't! Such great news. Now that she has completely recovered I can finally pick up the brush again.

I took a workshop with Lori Putnam a few months ago and she is just absolutely sensational. A peppy ball of energy, which totally makes her my favorite type of painter, and also a fabulous teacher. We focused a lot of doing thumbnail sketches before we paint plein air, which is something I never do and it was such a great thing to do, since if we lost our light we would still have our light/dark pattern. I learned a lot about values, although I already knew a lot about them something snapped when I took her class and all of a sudden they made more sense as to just how important they are to get right.
"Value is King!"