beginnings: a passion to make stuff

In 2010, I was yearning to make a change. I went to sleep and asked my unconscious self what should I do? One night I awoke with the direction “go paint.”
I had taken an abstract free wheeling watercolor class from a hippie in Los Angeles, more than thirty years ago. Since then I had thought about pursuing it but career demands and a search for a life partner were more important priorities. Living in Virginia, art class opportunities are very limited. In April, 2010 I enrolled in a watercolor class at Lorton Workhouse Arts, a former prison for housing suffragettes and minor criminals. I was surprised that I could paint and my first assignment was to paint by copying a poorly printed xerox of a famous Picasso painting. In my library, I found a photograph of that painting, “La Reve”, “The Dream.”

My first painting not just for that class but the first one ever is on the right, in shades of black and white. This is not a fable. It is true!

A few months later, this appeared in an architectural magazine…. a view from Steve Wynn’s Las Vegas home:

A few weeks later, asked to bring in a photo I’ve taken of an animal, here’s the photo and my painting:

I learned how to copy and paint but I realized that I could not express myself if I did not learn to draw. I searched the ‘net and found a workshop connected with the drawing guru, Dr. Betty Edwards. One week with her son, Brian Bromeisler, “draw right”, in a Maryland conference center this January (2011)..
Here’s my self portrait from July, 2010