Mendocino

My sister Alice and I spent last week painting with Birgit O'Connor in Mendocino at the Mendocino Art Center. We signed up for two workshops, back to back. The first was Treasures From The Shore where we focused on painting rocks, seaweed, shells and sand. The second workshop was painting flowers.

It was a fun and exhausting week. We learned a lot of techniques and were exhausted at the end of every day. We met some really nice people in the workshops and Birgit was a great watercolor instructor. Although the class was about having fun and learning technique I did come away with some paintings I like. Birgit also taught us a cool framing without glass technique which I haven't tried yet but plan to in the near future. I'll keep you posted.

Ice House

Went camping at Ice House Reservoir with Alice and Nancy (sisters) and their families. I stayed two nights and slept in the back of my van. I rigged it up with a super large king size sheet to give me some privacy. I used binder clips to keep the sheet in place inside the van. I love binder clips. They are so useful for so many things. I use them to hold art paper and also when I'm playing guitar outside by the fire and it's windy, they come in very handy for holding the music in place.

Anyway, we had a great time and one of the funniest moments was at the end of the evening when Alice and I were discussing how to put out the fire before we went to bed and from the bowels of Nancy's tent came the low throated words "dish water". It sounded just like our mother Sylvia that we all just cracked up laughing at the moment. Of course we used the dishwater eventually to extinguish the fire but not before enjoying a good belly laugh.