Love Affair...365 Days of Drawing...

I AM BACK! My landscape fun/painting trip with great pals on the east coast proved to be nothing short of marvelous. My drawing was challenged every day doing between one and three three small studies a day, with some false drawing starts in between and plenty of 'after painting hours' highlights and hilarity.

I feel energized like you can't believe. My mentor, Master Artist Everett Raymond Kinstler, N.A., (painter of seven US presidents at this point, wow!) has encouraged me from the very beginning to get out and paint the landscape. I reluctantly did this, kinda playing the field with my commitment to it.

But now I think I have a new love affair, still a bit GREEN around the edges, perhaps not pass the first kiss yet, but gaining in strength and understanding with a deep desire to work out the mysteries and commit for life. Betrothed to landscape painting , so to speak.

Along with a dear painting pal Holly Metzger, an artist of considerable talent who I admire deeply, we battled an apparent plague of bugs, including a huge alien green-eyed one which bit Holly, an intense east coast heatwave, deep thirst, smearing sunscreen, stinging repellant, and a few other delights of outdoor painting, to come up with some small sketches that I thought really captured the moment and the fun we were having together. Painting from life is amazingly powerful. A moment in time is always captured and an ice-tea never tastes so good afterwards.

My sketches were far from perfect but I enjoyed painting absolutely every one of them and learned a lot.

I post a selection here (more tomorrow) along with some quickie studies for learning purposes I did in my sketch book on the flight home. No engagement gifts necessary.