Day 21: After a long hiatus

Been drawing and drawing and not painting all that much this summer. Am taking a plein air class from a local artist who teaches at the Art Center College of Design, Rob Sherrill.    That's been a fun experience and also a totally mystifying experience. I know how to draw faces. I don't know how to draw trees much less paint them while the wind and the sun are moving everything around. 

Came across a fun blog/website about two months ago and I signed up to receive emails from him.  Lee Brown, who lives in Colorado, posts one wonderful photo a month that he's taken on his travels and then encourages everyone who wants to paint from the photo and submit their version to his website before the end of each month.  The previous challenges were way too challenging for me, or so I thought, but then this month?

The August challenge is of a bright yellow taxi Lee photographed while visiting Santa Barbara, California. I couldn't resist doing something with that taxi, so I finally painted something "to order".  Hopefully by the time you read this my version of the taxi will have been posted. I had a great time working on it.......the idea came to me because Lee said if you looked at the bumper closely you could see him and his wife standing there taking the photo.  If you choose to look/see what other people have done, below the photo of the taxi it says "click here to see the submissions gallery".

Just another fun site for everyone to take a look at.

And here's my version of the Santa Barbara taxi:

I leave tomorrow for a three days of painting with Ted Nuttall in Colorado. Have been drawing on 300# paper for days now, trying to have drawings ready to paint. So looking forward to this special event at a private home.

And if you're interested, I'm bringing Charles Reid to Pasadena, CA in May of 2011. Check his website for further info.