Woolgathering

I hope everyone will be able in this crazy busy season to take a little time to woolgather. We can rediscover the joy of finding beauty in the very simplest things around us and that....my friends, is the spoon that stirs a great big bowl of hopeful!

My studio classes have finished for the year and I while I can't wait to see everyone back in January, I also love this time of woolgathering in the studio. I can daydream about the upcoming summer season of travel workshops, spring shows and gallery trips and do lots of painting in my head.

This painting of the poinsettia is a work in progress. Before I began applying paint, I did my drawing (taken from a photo of the beautiful poinsettia show at the Como Park Conservatory in St. Paul), spattered the whole paper with Miskit, let it dry, then proceeded painting the poinsettia petals one at a time, wet-in-wet. As in all my watercolors, I need to see an "explosion" of color somewhere in the composition and I lucked out with that upper left corner. It's always a breath holding situation when you paint that wet, with that much pigment on your brush. But what fun when the adrenaline kicks in!

I've been invited to be demonstration artist/speaker for the March meeting of Minnesota Watercolor Society in Minneapolis so that will be my first order of business in the New Year. The butterflies have already arrived, but they'll be flying in formation soon, I'm sure. The ideas are dancing around in my head just like the "sugarplums" that my son-chef Ben and I spent several days last week baking (and I've spent every day since then, trying to AVOID!) Eeeek! The calories this time of year.

Please have a Merry, Merry Christmas and a prosperous and beauty filled New Year.