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Over the weekend, my friend and Art Sister, LaRetta took a class at the ArtBeat on Main Street in Vista. It’s a trendy gallery that the area is much in need of!  Scott Pryor was the artist,  and we were fortunate to have Billy as our model. Billy even brought his little dog, “Kilo” with him. Kilo spent the day visiting with everyone, and protecting the gallery from imminent danger!   Standing on concrete from 9am until 4pm,  left us all exhausted and ready to break out the wine…

But the wine had to wait!

Cleaning up all our supplies, packing them into the car, and driving home was about all we were good for,but we did it!

It has been years since my life drawing classes and my only thought was,  “Crap, how am I going to do this?”  Kicking my ego to the curb, I dug in like I knew what I was doing, and had a great time!  There were only including the instructor, so it was small enough to watch, ask questions, and paint without bumping into someone else.  Since my easel is far too large to be stuffed into the car, borrowing one from the gallery seemed like a good idea.

Believe it or not,

I  had to get help to set the easel up!  All my portable easels were old watercolor easels, and would never work for all it needed to do!  Once the gallery  easel was up, I set about fixing the acrylic paint so it wouldn’t dry out. Retarder  was the item of the day, and that was a   Snap!…

This isn’t perfect, far from it, but it was my first try at painting a portrait on location without the help of a sketch to get started!  There is much to be learned from painting this way, least of all – “ pay attention! “

Will I be doing this again?

You bet I will!  I had so much fun, and I love the idea of doing a painting in a day!  That’s why I loved abstract so much, get in, get out!  And it’s done!  However, once again it’s Practice, Practice, and more Practice!

The practice never ends!