On the Motivation and Joys of Painting with Friends

In my Studio, October 28, 2014

My husband, Arny, got a new iPhone 6+ and to see how good its camera was,  he came down and took a shot of me in my studio painting.

    I'm working on a small oil that I'll talk about later.  It's one of three small works I'm wanting to have in good shape before tomorrow -- when I'm having a painting date with a friend.  My friend is Deb Watson,  a wonderful artist and teacher. Check out her webpage to see her work, and get great watercolor painting tips, and lessons.  

     We have known each other for years, but we hadn't talked in a while.  She is a real go-getter, and her career reflects that.  I reconnected with her a couple of weeks ago, after my opening because I wanted to she how she was doing and get inspired by her energy and enthusiasm.  As usual, talking painting with her was a blast, and reenergized me.  She too seemed to have a good time.

    While she does oils, she's primarily a master watercolorist -- my original love in painting. She has done some work in oils, but not as much as I, so we'd thought it would be fun to set up a regular painting time where we could do our own work, and benefit from the enthusiasm and skills of the other.

     Last week was our first meeting.  We met in her studio, and talked a lot about stuff she is thinking about, then I sat down and did some sketches for a couple of little paintings.  Although I didn't get any farther that day, it inspired me to work on stuff this week, and I've almost completed the two works I started, and today began a third one.  Although I'd been painting abstracts recently, Deb's work has inspired me to return to my original love, realism, this week.   I think we're going to play with oils, but maybe she'll need to work on her watercolor stuff.  Either way, I am really looking forward to painting with another artist, I always find it increases my motivation and creativity.

    The picture you can see me working on is a little oil of a wonderful farmhouse B&B we stayed in with my sister and brother in law (Elaine and Larry) in August.  It's called the Arvgarden B&B in Wellsboro, PA.  We loved it, and loved using it as our base of operations so we could explore Pennsylvania's version of the Grand Canyon.  I'll put it up later today and make it available on my Paintworks website for auction and sale -- and later in the week I'll do the same with the two other small works I've been working on.  Look for them.

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