Artists in Residence

I am back in the saddle, so to speak, and already thinking about adopting a shelter cat to keep Wendell, company. Well, us too. It just so happens that a good friend of mine is volunteering at the MSPCA Shelter which seems like a sign to me. I've already visited the website and picked out a couple of candidates and I'm looking forward to meeting them. Nizzy was never sick a day in her life and I was so lucky to have her for such a long time. Today, Sally Dean Mello, Kelley MacDonald and I painted for 4 hours in the lobby of the Furnace Brook Middle School as "Artists in Residence", a program organized by the parents through Parent Teacher Organization. The kids are so into it and the Art teachers there are teaching skills such as 2 and 3 point perspective, color and values. The displays of the students' work were fabulous and the coordinator thanked us and told us how much they "value" the artists. Very gratifying. This was followed by a nice lunch with the girlfriends. Life is good.

Parasols

This painting was started yesterday at Rockland Middle School's Artist in Residence day which is put on by a volunteer parent committee. We set up in the lobby and did our thing, chatting with the kids as they changed class and had a few moments to watch and ask questions. I set up my still life again today to work on the painting and I finally got the contrast I was looking for. In order to get the highlights you have to 'see' everything darker than it actually is. I'll photograph the painting in daylight tomorrow.