Busy April and May

Wow!  I can't believe I haven't posted since March!  It has been a very busy April and May and I have so much to tell you, but I just haven't had the time to sit down and write.  In the last month I finished up teaching at my college, which meant final exams and final grades.  I also finished up my semester at AAU which meant final exam and final projects.  Plus Mother's Day, basketball tournaments with my older son, volleyball tournament with my daughter,  and a crossing over ceremony for my younger son who became a boy scout!  Whew!  It was a lot.  Now I have some time so I thought I'd catch up on my blog.  Rather than inundate you all at once with what I have been doing I thought I'd do a couple of posts over the next few days so you will have something fun to look forward to each day.

Let's start with my raven study, which is where I left off.  At the beginning of April my good friend and fellow artist Jen Seth-Cimini and I made a little retreat to a cabin for 24 hours of painting.  Jen found us an adorable little cabin at Beaver Meadows, an naturalist site near us in Western New York. We brought our food, chocolate and cookies and drinks, our sleeping bags and our paints!  We had a blast talking and drinking and painting till all hours of the morning.  It was wonderful to get away, no kids, no meals to cook, just painting and laughing.  I do a ton of both whenever I am with Jen.  She is such a great friend and artist:)

Here is Jen and our cabin...

Here is Jen set up in her space

And here is one of her paintings that she was working on there…a view out of our cabin window.

We ordered in some food including cheese and bacon covered french fries!  Yummy!  I wanted a little salt to go with them and the bar maid at the restaurant/bar we went to gave us the whole shaker!  We laughed for hours about that and brought it back to paint a picture of it.  Here is the photo reference we took for the painting.  Painting to come:)

We made a camp fire that night outside in the fire pit and sat around it in 22 degree weather looking at the stars and listening to the boy scout troupe that came to use the observatory on the property for their own star gazing.  The next morning was beautiful so we went on a walk…

And here is the painting I worked on…another raven study.   I started another painting but did not finish it and haven't worked on it since that weekend.  When I'm done with it I'll post it for you.  

Hope you enjoyed the story of our little retreat!