Patrick the Starfish  My friend and I attempted to duplicate the Starfish piece I created a while ago with Russian artist and instructor Natalia Nesterova. Here is my starfish painted with the class. Using the techniques learned in class, I attempted to teach the lesson to my friend. After working of on these together, we found ourselves frustrated and dissatisfied. Both of our pieces were sitting on the table, looking sad, forlorn, and unappreciated. I went to bed with thoughts of how to make these pieces special representations of our time together. The next morning, at 7:00 am, I went about transforming them by adding collage elements and text. Now they are shiny, happy partners.   

  Sea Marathon  Another online watercolor class from Russian artist and instructor, Natalia Nesterova. Learned a lot. . . . subtractive technique (removing paint with dry brush), creating clouds with paper towels (wet piece of towel, squeeze, then use to smudge for cloud effect), cool effects with salt on wet paint, scrubbing color with a dry brush, and more that I don’t recall. Fun lessons!