We had a wonderful Easter weekend at the West Point Inn (www.westpointinn.org) on Mt. Tamalpais in Marin. What a place and the views were amazing! We hiked in about 1.9 miles to spend the night in a little cabin with no electricity and heavy fog and I can hardly wait to go back. (The inn has more amenities). I highly recommend going for one of their pancake breakfasts (a fundraiser) It will be an experience you won't forget!

I've been working on this one and just finished today. (Most painting never "finished". They can always be worked and reworked). Charlie not often the subject of my work, but he is in this case. I think I took this photo of him with my camera a few months ago. I wanted a piece that played with the light, was spontaneous and didn't have much detail.

Stewart has been adopted by our youngest son and girlfriend. He's pretty cute and when I'm keeping him, he'll curl up at foot of my table and sleep. Nice company!

Back in November 2010 I started renting studio space, but for the month of April, I pulled out an old table easel and started painting at home on smaller pieces. My grand scheme of getting my living room decluttered of paint, canvas, brushes is falling by the wayside. Two places to work? Yikes!

My parents were married in July 1949. My dad was an ensign in the merchant marines and they were stationed in Rhode Island. The officers invited my parents to a celebration dinner on board ship where they surprised them with a silver sugar and creamer. My mom gave it to us a few years ago as an anniversary gift. I'm not a fan of polishing silver, but I polish these regularly and use them. Painting metallic finishes can be difficult. The focus has to be on the reflections. I gave it a try this past week. (My mom said she had her first and last martini at this dinner!)

Dailypaintworks.com issued a challenge last week to paint a chicken. If I paint from a photo, I like to take the photo myself so I asked friends if anyone knew of someone who had chickens. A very kind woman told me that I could take photos of her seven feathered friends for my "subject". Thank you, Mrs. Lowe!

 No, I'm not into turbans (broad brim hats are my chapeau of choice) , but it came up in conversation recently so I decided to do a self-portrait wearing one. Can't say it really looks like me (I didn't add enough wrinkles). As I use to tell all my little art students, "Don't worry about your portrait LOOKING like you. It will be the ESSENCE of you!" Haven't done a self-portrait in awhile and this was fun.

We've walked many a beach and many a road and many an unpaved path over the years. Along the way we've put many of these shell and rock treasures in our pockets. Happy Anniversary CEW!