albonanny gardens

this is my painting from this morning...when i get home i'll take a good photo of c.w.'s painting (see below) so you get an idea of his work..if you don't already know it

david slonim's afternoon demo - once again, i think my flash was on and the photograph is awful - rats!

we had the best day...the hottest day but oh, so good!! - it all started when we met out in the country to paint a farm. our group had c.w. for the day and we all decided it was too dang hot out in the open where we were set up so we moved. as i got in my car i realized i was dead out of gas!! - yellow light on and everything...and i had no idea how far we were traveling..so i piled my stuff into my new friend kae's car and off we went. we drove and we drove and , as they said, if they told us where we were going they'd have to kill us...ended up in a beautiful meadow with a garden - and a trellis - and immediately i had to pee! (another of the plein air perils)...but then c.w. had us paint along with him...it was sort of an experiment since he said he hadn't done it before...he'd do a part and then we'd do it - we didn't exactly copy what he was doing but he was leading us..and we of course were all painting the same thing. when he was done, he offered his painting for sale and a bunch of us threw our names in a hat. now i already had been lucky enough to be able to purchase todd reifer's demo from the first day- (at these workshops, the instructors' demos are in high demand because they offer them for a drastically reduced price because they are, after all, "demo"s and those that want to purchase throw their names in a raffle to see who the lucky buyer will be). that first day, i was disappointed because my name hadn't been drawn...or so i thought! - at the end of the day, i asked todd who purchased his painting and he said.."susie gregory...do you know her?...well he knows me now!!..so imagine my delight when my name was drawn this afternoon for c.w.'s painting!!!!! - all of a sudden i was a demo hog and i couldn't have been happier....or cared less if everyone else was mad at me.....in my mind, God was smiling on me this very day.... so we had lunch and for the afternoon - everyone in our group was too exhausted to paint ( everyone but me) so we had david slonim do a demo - a couple demos - of the day lilies in the park. he really had so much to offer and if anybody's not familiar with him, he just had a future kid's book accepted by simon and schuster ( i think) - this guys is so talented!! - and i bought a small demo of his when he was done (the one on the left) - no raffle this time - i just wanted it!!...anyway - that's it - we end up tomorrrow having some sort of critique but i don't think it's of our work so i'm not really sure what's going on - everyone else is staying for the big cocktail party tomorrow night - c.w. will be playing his banjo, quite well, i imagine, and a bunch of local art inthusiasts are invited to view the paintings and buy if they're so inclined. as for me..... i will be heading home to be with my boy..exhausted but dying to get at it!!!! i promise i will post better photos when i get home!