Flora Bowley and Bloom True

This past weekend I took a painting class from Flora Bowley.  She is such an amazing artist.  When she was demonstrating her techniques, she made it look so easy and then I would go and stand in front of my canvas and wonder what I just witnessed.  I had a blast though.  It was two full days of loveliness.  The ladies in the class were so nice and encouraging.   I wish I could show you what their paintings looked like because each one of them was totally different from the rest.  I think that is what was so amazing to me.  Each of us was able to take what Flora was teaching and make it our own.  Two of the ladies in the class had never painted before and you would never have known.   Fun relaxing music was played throughout the two days.  There was even a live cello artist who played for us the last day.  Flora made this experience special and I would recommend taking a class from her the very next chance you get. 

          

The food was incredible! 

Pixie Retreat catered our lunches and they almost convinced me to become a vegan it was so good and it was packages so adorably too.

 I stuck with similar palettes for both paintings, mostly because I loved the colors.  My camera did not do these paintings justice.  The depth and rich colors are pure yumminess.  One of the problems I had was when we had to cover up huge parts of the painting.  As you can see, I didn't follow instructions very well.  I liked too much of what was going on to cover it up.  I will have to work on that apparently.

 I was amazed that I walked away with two 30 X 30 inch canvases pretty much finished.  When I heard we were going to be painting on such large canvases, I didn't think I would finish even one.  I did discover though, that you really do have to use high quality paints to get the right effect.  I tried some things when I got home and the cheaper paint just does not work the same.  We used Golden paints in the class and I am going to invest in the colors I really liked. 

I was so jazzed by the weekend that on Monday I painted this pretty goldfish on one of my 24 X 24 canvases.  For some reason, that size doesn't seem so big anymore.