Watercolor class again

My two friends and I got together for another basic watercolor lesson from the book "We're all Artists, Watercolor for Everyone" by Teresa Ascone.  

Here are the three together - Johnna was very unhappy with her tree on the far right so she made me promise not to post it, so I'm compromising because I thought she did a great job on the mountains shadows.  She later lifted most of the paint from the tree and repainted it and is much happier with it now.

Jean's is on the left, mine in the middle and Johnna's on the right.  I've painted this same lesson twice in the past so I have a little advantage over them.  This is only Johnna's second time painting and Jean has only been practicing for about 4 weeks.  It is so fun watching them get all excited about creating a painting that they feel proud of.

Painted tile for our woodstove

We are going to put a tile base under our woodstove at the cabin.  I thought it would be nice to get those family members that come to the cabin with us to paint a tile and I'll put them all together.  I painted the first tile.  It is a painting of our cabin...not an exact replica but close enough!

Tile was painted at Color Me Mine studio in Anchorage.

For Mim:  I grew up eating moose so to me it is not my favorite meat - I much prefer chicken or beef.  However, it is cheaper when you shoot, butcher and package your own and a moose can easily feed us two for the year.  It is fairly dry, so moose steaks and roasts can be a bit dry and tough unless you cook them right.  I like to grind a lot into hamburger - it is perfect for tacos, lasagna, spaghetti and soup plus it is low in fat.  Yes, there are seasons depending on the game unit you are in.  In Tok, it was open for any bull, didn't matter the size.  In some areas you can only shoot a spike/fork bull or over 60" which is the size of the antlers.  So either a really young one or a really old one.  There are also bow and muzzle loader seasons depending again on the area. 

Slice of life in Tok, AK

This past weekend we drove to Tok (about 250 miles north of Anchorage) to visit my sister and nephew.  The drive up was beautiful...fall is in the air.  Most of the trees have turned yellow and the tundra is a beautiful mixture of yellow, red, burgandy, and purple.  

We stayed in a tent in her yard - it got to 28 degrees; there was ice on the dog's water bowl in the morning.  It was very c-c-c-cold!  Although we stayed warm in our sleeping bags that we purchased 29 years ago.  We must have bought good ones!

We had lunch at Moon Lake and there was a moose directly across the lake from our picnic table.   

My husband got excited when he saw the moose, but after getting his binoculars out he could see it was a cow and not a bull.  Otherwise, we might have been eating moose all winter.

Drawing in church

Today I sketched a lady named Terri.  She was a good subject and held fairly still. 

My erasers must all be dirty, because when I tried to erase her chin area and redraw it, the lead just smudged and I couldn't get it off.  (it kind of looks like she's blowing smoke but she isn't!)

Art again...finally

I haven't been artistic in so long...it's been way too long!  A friend from church asked me several weeks ago about watercolors and could we get together some time.  She is a beginner and just wanted to get together and play and learn some tips.  I am not an accomplished watercolorist by far, but it sounded like fun and I was glad she asked.  So we invited a third friend, who has never painted with watercolor before and we all got together for four hours of painting.  

We used a book I have called "We're All Artists, Watercolor for Everyone" by Teresa Ascone, a local Anchorage painter.  I took my very first water color class from her several hundred years ago.  

We did an intermediate lesson but all succeeded!  It was so much fun to get together with the ladies and just paint.  Jonna's is on the left, mine is in the middle and Jean's is on the right.