Whoa, it's been over a year already?

   
Lots and lots of paintings lately.  More trees, water, and more water.  I recently got a job working as an art instructor at Sundance Resort and I get to spend lots of time up the canyon and that has renewed my love of, you guessed it, trees and water.  It really is the most beautiful place to work.  I pinch myself every time I get to go up and teach a class.  I love, love, love teaching-almost as much as painting.  Perhaps the best side effect of the new job is I get to paint-a lot!  And get paid to do it! What?! How did I get so lucky?

I guess this means it's time to start up the ol' blog again :) I know somewhere in Guatemala my dad is saying "it's about friggin time!" You're welcome dad!

Until next time!

Another collage :)

 

Lou 16X20

 

Just a fun piece playing with scraps of other drawings.  This one was great because it was like a big puzzle.  Looking for just the right texture or color.  Only had to add a little charcoal, ink or white paint to bring it all together.  I have done this pic before in ink, but it's always fun to do reference multiple ways to see how it changes :) 

Bingham Town

I finally finished Tammy's playroom, actually, it's been done about a month and I am just now posting :).  It was such a fun job to work on.  While I was painting her kids would come up and tell me things they wanted.  Brody and Hazel named all the animals in the pet shop.  I would love that moment when I was painting and I could hear them come home from school, Hazy was always the first one up the stairs to see me.  Such adorable kids!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For mom

A piece I am working on for my mom, she wants flowers (roses and daisies to be specific :)) so here it is.  It may need a little more tweaking and I want to sand around the edges a little (now that I am looking at it, the petals on the left daisy need to be filled in).  It was originally going to be 3 panels, but then I realized that would be HUGE.  So, two it is.  Just not feeling the whole painting thing lately, it's all I can do to make myself paint.  Thank you mom for the motivation.

Antigua and Copan

Alfombras (carpets) made out of dyed sawdust cover the streets where the processions will come through later.  It was so crazy how many of these there were, blocks and blocks of alfombras.

A lot of them were in regard to the new pope.

This was probably my favorite, the guy was making prints of the children's hands.  So cute!

Waiting to go into the ruins in Copan, Honduras.  We were the first ones there because we had to be back in Guatemala by 11:00 am because Marianna didn't have her passport and the border agent said we could all go if we were back before her shift ended.

There are Macaws in the park, they release 4 more last year, so you see them everywhere.

Marianna and Me, we went to the park while dad and Blanca slept in.  She was teaching me Spanish and I was supposed to teach her English, but she ended up doing more of the teaching.

Hahaha, so sad!

All in all, amazing ruins.  Tikal still takes the cake, but these were really impressive and more protected from the elements so the detail in the carvings were more intact.  It was a great morning to just relax and walk around.

Atitlan

 

Atitlan is so beautiful, I can see why dad keeps coming back.  It is so quiet and peaceful, the water is still a bit chilly and the mosquitos leave something to be desired, but there is no better way to start  a trip in Guatemala. 

These are the cutest girls, Elena, the little one, is the daughter of the caretaker of Don Moises.  Dad always brings her chocolate, I would've kidnapped her in a heartbeat.

Guatemala sketches :)



These are the first few sketches from my trip to Guatemala.  It has been so wonderful traveling to new places and experiencing new things.  We started the trip in Atitlan which I had been to before, but was totally worth repeating.

The light played differently in the morning, afternoon and night,  Morning was always my favorite because the shadows play so starkly against the morning sun.

We spent the next leg of the trip  in Copan seeing the ruins, but before that we found this great little hotel called Hotel Copan.  It was right on the corner of the central park and we had a great seats for that night's procession.  The streets are filled with "rugs" of sawdust composed of images of Christ that are really quite beautiful.  That night we stayed up late to watch the procession proceed to the church right next to us.  This was the fountain in the pool area, it was such a beautiful place to stay.

Our next stop was in Coban,  on our way to the Candelarias, which are incredible caves that you walk through and float in tubes through.  The trip on the tubes was amazing, it was about a mile long underground and incredibly beautiful.  We stayed at a little set of cabins called De La Abuela, It was a cute little place right off the road.  Dad says it has seen better days, but I though it was quaint.

We stayed in a place called Cancuen after our trip through the caves.  It was a super nice place (especially considering everything else we had seen on our way to it :))  It was really hot, but that didn't matter because the experience of the caves more than made up for the heat.