ARTichokes Gallery

It's Saturday and I've been to an exciting painting class!

Having spent the last few months completing fairly realistic paintings for classes, today was an absolute change of pace. This morning's class was the first of 4 on Abstracting Painting. Before, I painted from Master's paintings from the Impressionists, and more recently, from photographs for landscape paintings. Now, here I am, trying to pull some emotion, some strong abstract from my mind! I think I need a nap! It was hard work! I do love the opportunity to use strong colors, thicker paint and heavy brush and palette knife strokes. I am already looking forward to next Saturday's class!

I've been participating in some of the "open painting" sessions at ARTichokes, giving me the opportunity to paint 2 or 3 times a week. Becky Pashia or Kristin Goering are there during these open sessions. They help with getting you set up to paint, offer excellent advice if you get "stuck", and are usually working on their own paintings....fascinating to watch them. I will not be painting this Friday night because there is a new show opening at the Gallery! I was so fortunate to be at the Gallery when Barry Thomas from Arkansas arrived with a truckload of his amazing paintings! It was such an honor to meet and talk with him. He is such a powerful painter, has such a way with color and design! If the rest of the artists, that will be showing at the gallery, are of the same caliber as Barry....WOW! I am definitely attending the opening of the show! It is Friday evening, February 13th, from 6:00 to 8:00pm. I look forward to meeting all of the artists! ARTichokes is in the Mission Farms development at 106th & Mission Road. You should drop by!