Starting in October continuing through the end of 2014 I am going to be doing one 5"x7" study a week in addition to other projects. These paintings will also be for sale. I will be posting them each week as they are completed.

For a while now I have been on this speed race to get better as fast as possible. While working a full-time job it isn't easy to not get burnt out really quick. I panic on nights that I don't study or paint thinking that one day of not doing these things is going to seriously set me back. All the while my local painting friends keep telling me to stop rushing and just take a breather, which is hard for me to do... I mean really REALLY hard.

My dogs surgery forced me to breathe. I couldn't paint; It just wasn't in me to enjoy myself while my dog was suffering. I read a book, looked at paintings (ok so I didn't really stop studying) and just sort of took it all in. I felt really guilty for not painting, but knew that it was necessary for me to slow down.

Then I noticed that I began to think about and understand the other side of painting. The movement, the importance, the mood, the REASON for painting. Why am I doing this after all? Why do I love to paint? What makes me passionate? I'll be darned if these aren't some of the most important aspects but I never gave myself time to even give it a thought. So I have applied a few of these things that I contemplated and now I am really having fun playing with paint!

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!"

Recently I took a workshop on cityscapes and I enjoyed it immensely. It brought back everything I remembered from high school in regards to one-point and two-point perspective. It seems so often when I finish a painting I get upset if my perspective is off at all in my painting. (Wishing I would have taken a drafting class at some point.)

If you are not familiar with these terms, one-point perspective is when you have one vanishing point and two-point perspective has two vanishing points.

Practice just plain ol' comes into play here because there is perspective in everything. I think once you get past the intimidation factor and just accept that it is all part of the learning process to not get it perfect all the time, every time and just enjoy the journey you will find yourself throwing your brushes across the room or drowning your frustration in wine (which i never do!).

This particular painting I did is of a street in France, and my instructor just gave me a look, because as you can see I have several vanishing points to contend with, but I was determined to pull it off and I am very pleased with the result.