Welcome back to my blog!  I'm in a 5-day Master Mentoring workshop with Albert Handell; 14 students of merit (especially one gentleman from PA) and I believe I've found someone who will actually help me to improve my style, and business practices.  We'll see!!!

Monday was a lovely demo at the conference room in Fort Bragg at Harbor Lite Lodge.  I was a bit frustrated since the subject was a clump of palm trees, but what I learned was about pastel application, composition, and about eliminating unnecessary foofoo (my term) that I've found so difficult.  I guess it really means to FOCUS.  I'm going to try to do just that this week.  


Guess I'm pretty tired (Tues) 'cause I can't hardly figure
out how to do all this computer stuff.

Anyway, here's my first piece on Monday in the ebbing fog.  It's the island at Russian Gulch.  He said it was PRETTY GOOD and that's good.  Then he saw the next one of the white logs (below) and suggested I "PAN IN" because he felt that was my strength.  Obviously, I failed in my FOCUS attempt, but I did manage to leave out the huge bridge in the background, and the kayak with 2 people who kept going into the little cave!

  Next I made this closeup 

of some logs that were actually quite far away and to the left of the island, down below me.  I ended up with a painting about a rock, didn't I?  Well, with this information, AH told me to PAN IN... so onward to Day 2...

so today, Tuesday, I was at Caspar Beach from 12-6 (yes, we're pretty tired, and over exposed but not burned because of big hat and sunscreen.  I focused on these rocks with a piece of driftwood.  He checked me out once during the day; asked for "more" on the wood and more colors on the rocks.  Not sure if I even took a later photo, but this is what I spent most of the afternoon working on.

It's a process, for sure.  I think tomorrow I'll try to watch him on location.  He'll be doing an oil demo in the morning at the hotel.  We're going to the Druid Grove tomorrow.

   

So on the way back home, I had Vera, my lovely chauffeur, drive us by the Druid Grove in time for the sunset.  It was so amazing, and so red (almost heart shaped) but unbelievable.  This is the actual color!!!  I couldn't have made this up on a bet!!!  This made up for the 46 degree mornings and the wet gray fog we've been experiencing. 

 Come back soon for more great stuff!  Albert is a genius!  I'm seriously hoping to tap into some of that!  and Jeanine, his "significant other" is charming, pleasant, helpful, and a wonderful artist too!