First day

Katherine Stats started the day with a slide show.  She demonstrated how she takes many pictures of a given location and than moves things around with a program for artists from Correll.  More to follow on this software.  Afer showing the pictures she showed the completed painting.  This was very informative for me.  Just as John Carlson says in his book "Carlson's Guide to Landscape Painting", paint not just what you see but as it should be.  Katherine Stats does this very well.

We went to Bibler Gardens to paint and it is a spectacular place.  Flowers everywhere in such masses that it is hard to comprehend. Katherine did a demo and focused on poppies and a few of the spiky navy floweres.  That clearly was the best choice, especially for a demo. 

I spent the day after the demo trying to paint the first photo of the steps.  I was trying her techniques of painting first thin with thick paint and than laying paint over it without making a mess.  I kept making real mush and was totally exasperated.  I will keep trying today.  I am clearly painting with to much paint so I am determined to learn this technique.  At the end of the day, feeling pretty despondent about my progress, a young woman that worked at the garden came up and told me she thought my painting was fantastic and wanted to buy it.  I didn't know what to say.  It did help end the day on a positive note and I am prepared to paint another day!