04/05/2010: "FINISHED - (well, with one painting anyway)"

Friday night Aaron and I went to see the First Friday shows and there was some really impressive work out there. I particularly enjoyed the show by Sue Kraft who had close to 40 paintings at the State Museum (some of them fairly large). She's a landscape painter, but her work is unique and filled with light and color. Best of all (for the artist) the majority of them sold!

Anyway, I went back to my own paintings after her show and at first felt a little dejected. Most of my paintings for the show in June are still in early phases so they don't have a lot of depth or shine yet.

But then I decided to just be inspired (and not depressed) by how beautiful her show was...and this weekend ended up being very productive. I finished my first new painting for my show on June 4th. I also made excellent progress on three other paintings that I'd already started, and began a new one. It felt *really* good to spend so much time in the studio.

Today when I came out to work at the university there was snow on the ground. It was sunny on Douglas Island, where I live, and it had snowed 4 inches in the valley, only 12 miles away. Gotta love the Alaskan weather!