In the New Year . . .

I was very busy in 2011. In fact, I would say it was one of my busiest and most "well-rounded" years. It started with drawing sessions in Louisville from January through April, one of the results you see here in my painting of the gypsy. As I compare them now, of course, I can see all kinds of things that are not accurate. After all, art is NOT a photograph. But still, I have such "a good eye"-- you'd think I could have done a little better.

Lots of bucket list stuff done.

• my 50th HS Reunion,

• every-other-saturday drawing classes in Louisville from January

through March;

• a week-long workshop in Kilmarnock, VA with a master artist I

really, really like;

• finding an old HS classmate that had been "lost" for 45 years;

• finding out I could lose 35 pounds all by myself;

• going to New York just to see plays and eat well . . . with two very

good friends;

• going to Dublin, London, and Edinburgh with Gary;

• participating in Art of the Carolinas by myself;

• hosting Thanksgiving Dinner for my family;

• making art at least once-a-week with my old friend;

• having at least monthly lunches with interesting women . . .

Pretty neat stuff . . .

My Mother, Myself . . .

My Mother,

She would have been 102 TODAY.

At the time of this picture, she would have been married to my Dad and a student at Eastern Kentucky Teacher's College (now EKU).

Back to Painting . . .

After more than a month of preparing for, attending, and recovering from my 50th High School Reunion, I've gotten back to painting.

This is a painting I started in Kilmarnoch, VA at the workshop I attended, which I abandoned at the time because the teacher didn't want me to move away from the painting with which I started. It's taken this long to talk myself out of trying to paint just like that teacher and return to what I assume is

my own style.

The painting is from a photo of my father's middle brother (Walter Lee) and I've added a young woman for intrigue. I'm not sure it works, but I like it none-the-less.

A new portrait . . .

The Witching Hour is nigh upon us. It's almost Monday and my 50th high school reunion is on Friday and Saturday. It has been a lot of fun planning for it and contacting folks and reintroducing classmates to other classmates. . . but I'll be happy when it is over.

Above is my newest attempt at painting a portrait (and of course it is not done--as usual). This girl was half Puerto Rican. I thought she looked like an American Indian Princess. She was quite regal. It was a great deal of fun to paint her.

Orientations

I'm just back from a week in a watercolor workshop with Ted Nuttall. WONderful week. The painting to the left is one I did there. She's a model I drew in one of my "long-pose" Saturdays. She's not done and never will be, BUT she will be done again.

Of course I'll need a day or two to get back "in gear" before everything is normal ever again. On the way to Kilmarnock, VA, we stopped over night in Staunton and saw MacBeth at the Blackfriars Playhouse there . . . and went to Monticello the next day around noon.

I love vines!

The Odorata Clematis is in bloom on the front porch and is GORGEOUS! We've had an over-abundance of rain but not so bad that we've been flooded (we live on a rise) or in the path of a tornado.

The beautiful tulips are all gone. The spirea out by the road looks like a fountain and the doublefile viburnum is beginning to bloom. I can't believe how beautiful all the spring flowers have been! I'm sure the rain has done it. It is SO green out. I feel like I've landed in Ireland.

I'll be attending my long-awaited workshop in Virginia very soon. I've loaded my palette, drawn my nine portraits and bought my hot-shot easel. On the way, we stop by Stauton, VA to see Macbeth at Blackfriar's Playhouse.

Spring at my house . . .

Spring has come with extravagance. In one small wooded spot in my front yard a multitude of tulips have sprung up. Over the years we have transplanted the odd bulb we would find elsewhere in the yard (planted by former owners). Apparently they have taken their own sweet time (years) to bloom. Now they are naturalizing I suspect. I can count 30 to 40 in this one spot at the base of a tree.

I've been preparing for my watercolor workshop in early May. I have selected 8 "portraits" to reproduce on heavy smooth watercolor paper and am in the process of redrawing them. It's fun and totally consuming.