Day 58: Friday, April 8

Yesterday, Thursday, opened cold, cloudy, chance of rain, but there had been a paint-out sheduled at the Arlington Garden for some time and typical California? Wait 5 minutes and the weather changes........or is that Denver?

martha and walter mcnall

Anyway, I drove to the Garden to see who was painting and what they were painting. It turned into a glorious morning with some wonderful work. The group is led by Martha and Walter McNall and Brenda Swenson. I told them I was "pimping at the Park" in terms of trying to recruit all of the wonderful plein air painters to exhibit their work at our Arlington Garden Party, Saturday, April 30, 9:30-2 p.m.

martha and walter mcnall



brenda swenson



A few vistas of the Garden, a few painters.....

chuck kovacic



lynne fearman

Looking forward to lots of gorgeous art for sale on the 30th of April!!

This same group will be painting, again, on next Thursday, April 14th barring a rain storm.  There is also a group painting there on Wednesdays and there are always one or two people painting, walking, sitting and reading.....

You're never alone in this park.

Day 56: Wednesday, April 6

I mention Lee Brown quite often. He's a photographer that does beautiful work as he travels the world and he's a painter and he's a generous poster of a monthly challenge.  This March's challenge was a saxophone player in Central Park and Lee was so excited by the number of submissions to the Challenge that he's going to make a photo book out of the submissions and give it to Ralph, the sax player in Central Park, N.Y. What fun and how astonished Ralph will be.

And then I spent some of this morning wandering the web, looking at other peoples' blogs. Have added a list of challenge sites to the blog since I learned how to do that this morning.  There's a blogging website that has "handy hints".

And then I went out to "do my job" as "Art Chairman" for the Arlington Garden's Second Celebration of Its Fifth Anniversary" which is coming up April 30, Saturday, from 9:30 - 2.  By Art Chairman I mean I'm out there recruiting painters, painting groups, plein air painters....anyone and everyone who paints because they're all welcome to exhibit and sell at our Party. The Art has to be painted in or of the Garden (there are no huge pink roses in the Garden for example and I'll know you didn't paint it in/of the Garden ;-))  If you'd like to participate, please email me so that we talk rules and regs which are few but necessary.

And while wandering the Garden I ran into a favorite of mine: Brenda Swenson with her always perpetual smile and wonderful welcoming. Thinking about her I went to her blog and found this wonderful lesson, by Brenda,  about painting shadows.  I think it's something we all have trouble with and I hope Brenda appreciates my pointing you in her direction.  She has some wonderful workshops in negative painting, has a wonderful painting tour of Italy coming up.....take a look at her blog if you have the time.

Day 54: Monday, April 4 Paint Brushes

Got an email from Greg Daniels regarding DaVinci paintbrushes. It had a video attached that showed the brushes being made by hand in the factory in Germany.   I thought it was really informative.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=YgwEke-RvWE


It reminded me that Da Vinci brushes also make the DaVinci 5080 Cosmotop brush that Brenda Swenson used in a weekend workshop that made us all think that if we only had that brush, we would be able to paint just like Brenda. Hah!  But the brush has turned out to be a wonderful addition to the paint brush collection we all have. I use one of two sizes with great regularity, one's about 1" wide, the other's about 1.5" wide.