New home, New Mexico

We have now been in New Mexico for nearly four months. Most of the boxes have been unpacked, and I am back in the studio. I have been preparing for my next online class which will be launched in October. The class will be the first in a series designed to teach techniques for realistic drawing and painting. I believe that drawing is a skill that can be learned, and the thing I will try to emphasize is to accept individuality and imperfection. If you can write your name, you can learn to draw. Since all of my other online classes have been geared towards abstraction, this will be a completely different class for me to teach. I am really looking forward to it!

We do not see as much wildlife here as we used to see in Joshua Tree. We do hear coyotes almost every day, but sightings are rare, and photos even rarer. I am beginning to think that most of the wildlife in Joshua Tree is half tame. (I do recall many desert people telling me how they fed the animals they had in their yards.) Maybe there's just more space without human beings here, making the wildlife more skittish. I am planning to visit Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge soon, and I have hopes that I will be able to replenish my library of wildlife images.

In other studio news, I have been working on making short videos of myself while painting. I am finding the technical challenges to be somewhat daunting, but I have managed a few short clips. If you want to see them, I've posted them on Instagram.