Austin Painting a Day Workshop...

Wow! What a trip! I had just a wonderful time in Austin! The workshop was really a great experience ---two GREAT artists/teachers in one room. Plus all the energy and enthusiasm of the students. It's the kind of event that will give you renewed focus on your art career, that's for sure.

Austin was hosting the South By Southwest extravaganza while we were there and my friends and I took in some of the sights and sounds of that experience as well. Needless to say I am exhausted, but I highly recommend it.

I think I will do like Karin did and do a little play-by-play of the trip.

DAY 1---Drove 9 hours and then stopped in at our friend's house to change and head out to the get-together at Carol Marine's house. Got to see her and her family again and they are still as wonderful as ever. Met Karin for the first time and knew immediately she was my kind of woman. What you see is what you get. Also met other artists that I admire...Qiang Huang, Robin Cheers, Justin Clayton, Laurel Daniel to name a few. It was amazing to meet and talk to all these talented folks. WOW!

DAY2---Workshop started. Great class. Carol is an organized, concientious, generous teacher. I enjoyed this second chance to be inspired by her. Karin is a natural teacher as well. Very approachable, and she gives you the "news you can use". I did this little 5x7 orange the first afternoon.

That evening I went with my friends to a nice restaraunt recommended by our host/concierge Kekoa. He is the son of my great friend Cori and he and his wife Amy were gracious enough to let us stay with them. Kekoa gave us copious detailed advice about where to eat, shop and go to hear music and he nailed it every time! Cori flew in that night and she and my two friends Carol and Tracy that came with me from Mississippi sat up and talked that night till 1 AM.

DAY 3---Another very enjoyable day of class. It was great to try the black background that Karin uses. I know I will be doing this a lot. This 6x6 pear was done on a solid black background. The photo is not good at all, but the painting is very cute.

Below is a photo of me and my rowdy friends taken at the Continental Room. I managed to slip away and be home in bed by 1AM since I had class the next morning, but they and Kekoa, Amy and Kele (Cori's other son) happened to party on till about 4.

DAY 4---Ok, I'm not going to lie. By now I am dragging butt. It keeps running through my mind, "You are too old to go out all night and do something this intense all day". But life is short. So I absorbed everything I could soak up in class and managed to eke out this little cutie...

It is another 6x6 done on one of Karin's black masonite boards. I love how Carol does some of her paintings on patterned backgrounds so I just threw caution to the wind and attempted this polka dot fabric with the bottle sitting on it. Carol says I "noodled" a little too much, which is code for over-worked or got a little to "fussy" with it. And I have to say I agree. I am working toward a bolder more confident stroke. It will come one day. But the trick is to get in there and paint more. That is my plan.

So since I did not have class again the next day, we headed out to take our hosts to a nice dinner and then more music! We went to a place called Moonshine and had a wonderful dinner and then went on to the Saxon Pub and heard a relly terrific group called Spottiswoode and His Enemies. Cannot tell you how much we enjoyed all the great groups we got to hear. Somewhere along with way we caught our second wind and continued to make the most of our evening until 3:30 AM.

DAY 5-Okay, at this point sleeping late was definitely in order and I think I slept till 10:30. Other than making a quick trip to the Jerry's Art-A-Rama we did absolutely nothing productive that day. We headed out about 4PM to go to another cool restaurant (like I said, Kekoa nailed it every time) and then went to a place called Antone's to hear two more bands. It was St. Patrick's day plus our last night there, but we managed to call it a night early and headed home about 1-ish. (Like I said...I am telling myself that I am too old for this, but if you can still do it are you then, indeed, too old? I guess not, is what I say.)

Thanks you to anyone who has managed to make it all the way to the end of this epistle. And at this time I just want to GIVE everyone a big thanks who made this trip what a huge success it was: Carol Marine and Karin Jurick...these two talents are going places and I am just so lucky to have caught them on the upswing before they got to be prima-donnas. (just kidding about that last part.) Thanks to the wonderful Park family for being the best hosts you can possibly imagine. And thanks to my fabulous traveling companions...we were so pretty. I will never forget apple-bottom jeans(a song), or Titty Bingo(a group) or Tracy's "lucky dress".