Happy New Year

I want to wish everyone a wonderful New Year. I hope it is a great year in the world as far as world peace and economic prosperity. I hope everyone enjoys their family and friends and they experience good health. And I hope that you continue on the path of learning to see and appreciate the beauty in the world.


I have thought long and hard about the past year and the up and coming 2010. I have not made any New Year's resolutions as I hardly ever keep them. Why is that? Last year I made about five or six resolutions all with the greatest intentions on improving my life and the only one I kept was starting this blog!!! (I also had intentions on starting a website.) But if I was to make any resolutions they would be:
1. Loose weight.
2. Get fit.
3. Start my own website.
4. Sketch more often. (Last year I had said I would sketch every day. That lasted about 10 days.)
5. Organize all the stuff in my life.
And of coarse continue to paint and to improve my technique and style. Maybe I could just set these up as goals, not resolutions.


In looking back at 2009 I feel that I have developed as artist in many ways. I had a very busy year and I actually kept up with everything. (Well almost.) I was in approximately 20 art shows. I plan on doing less outdoor art shows this year and more indoor shows. I feel that I have improved my teaching skills and am getting ready to start a busy semester at the end of this month. I have worked primarily in watercolor and have really enjoyed it but I still keep trying new things. I spent alot of time working with Masa paper and feel that my paintings are improving. I posted Magnolias IV because I think it was one of the best paintings that I completed last year. I was sad to see it get sold. Right now I'm working on A Yellow Rose Garden. It has so much more to it and I'm being more daring in what I try to do on the Masa paper. I just hope everything goes well with it. One thing that I've learned from my teacher Rieneke Leenders is that watercolor is so much more forgiving than I thought it was. If I do something that does not work out so well there are ways of changing it so that you do not have to give up on the painting. And that is wonderful!