Well, this is my last live painting class post for a while.  I have enjoyed it so much, but I need to clear my plate to focus on some other projects for a while.  It has been a learning experience for me and a great source of joy during these tough times!  I really appreciate everyone who participated and sent me pictures of their work, notes, and e-mails telling me about their painting journey and how this class has been a bright spot for them, too. I can’t tell you how many people started painting along with me simply because they’ve always wanted to try it.  I can tell from the work I’ve been receiving that there are a lot of people who found a talent they didn’t know they possessed.  It makes my whole year to hear that! This isn’t the end, though.  I’ll be back when my schedule

Last week was absolutely packed!  Jeff took the week off, so I cleared my schedule as much as I could to take advantage of our time to work on projects together.  We installed the picture frame molding and chair rail in both the sewing room and master bedroom and got a ton of work done in the yard.  We did a “family workday” on Saturday to get all of the big stuff done (hauling mulch, edging the beds, putting down weed-blocking fabric, etc.)  We have some small things to do when it cools off later this week, but the yard is really coming along.  I also still have caulking, priming, and painting to do in the master bedroom and sewing room. I’ll be sharing my progress and process on these projects starting this week, but first, I wanted to post about the live art class from a couple of weeks

Friday ended up being a crazy busy day.  It was one of those days when I was just a little bit behind from the moment my feet hit the floor.  I finished a business call and checked the time…”Oh my goodness!  It’s 1:45 and my painting class is in 15 minutes!”  I rushed to get set up, refill my water bottle, and grab a quick snack since I had completely missed lunch.  I turned my computer on just in time to start the live class.  I pressed the “Go Live” button as usual and received an error that the camera was not compatible.  This is the same camera on the same computer I’ve been using each week!  Gah!   After several failed attempts, I switched over to my phone.  So, the first few minutes on the Facebook Live recording are me getting the tripod set up, getting my palette, and putting

Friday, we did another live painting class!  In that session, we focused on still life painting and painted a Barlett pear with some leaves.  When I first started painting, I wasn’t interested in the still life genre at all, but after painting 100 landscapes off of pictures, I saw some of the issues of not painting from life.  Since still life is the easiest thing to set up and have readily on hand as a “model”, I decided to paint 100 still lifes.  I saw myself grow so much as an artist during that time.  It was overwhelming at first, trying to paint from a three-dimensional perspective instead of a flat image, but my eye was better trained through the process and I’ve grown to really enjoy painting still lifes. We started the class with an exercise – a 10-minute pear.  I could almost feel the panic when I said

On Friday, we had another live oil painting class on Facebook.  Those have been so much fun and have given me a good excuse to make painting more of a priority.  I really got out of it after my shoulder surgery and this has helped ease me back in and practice almost every day. Last week, we painted four mini landscape.  They are so quick and low-pressure and I’ve really enjoyed painting them.  I have learned so much already through just experimenting, trying new-to-me things, and working outside of my comfort zone.  Here are the paintings I completed for the class… We started out with a summer landscape with interesting clouds… And moved onto one with stormier skies… We then experimented with texture…laying down the paint and just leaving it.  I wanted to try some different things with the participants, so they can discover their own style… And we finished