I'm going to another art workshop!

This Saturday I’m going to another workshop with friend and fabric artist Kharon Clark. This time it is just across town and only for the day. However, this time it is an oil painting workshop with the nationally known oil painter Virginia Vaughan!

I met Virginia, in September of 2007, when she came to the art group I belong to and gave us a painting demo. I immediately like her. She is just one of those people you really like the first time you meet her. She also brought with her a number of her daily paintings from her Last Year on the Farm. You can read about and see all of her daily paintings on her blog. I have to mention too that she played a big part in my decision to begin blogging – she is just a huge inspiration for me in many ways.

I was fascinated from the time her brush first touched the canvas at how she could achieve the look she did with so few brush strokes. Besides her plein air paintings, she does what she calls “drive by paintings” where someone drives and she paints as they go down the road. I’m still waiting to experience that!

I e-mailed her this morning telling her how excited I am to attend the workshop on Saturday. Truth be known, I’m also a little intimidated – after all it’s oil paints! I feel like a kid going to camp for the first time. My easel, paints and canvases are sitting in my dining room ready to go.

I have to laugh, when I got my French easel not too long ago I really had a hard time figuring out how to set it up. It was so nice and compact but it had no instructions and it seemed as if there are latches and hooks everywhere! It just isn’t quite as simple as plopping down on my loveseat, putting my feet up on my ottoman with my drawing board on my lap to work on my graphite drawings or pastels.

This will be a whole new experience – painting with oils, using brushes, on a canvas, on an easel and learning to look at those same details in a different way – the same details I strive so hard to put on paper but now try to simplify them. Hmmm . . . I wonder if she realizes she has her work cut out for her with me? I do know though, from what I’ve seen, Virginia is not only a very talented artist but a wonderful teacher. That in itself says a lot because not every artist is a good teacher.

Well wish me luck and I’ll let you know how I do.