On Thursday, Mel Stabin’s group spent the day in the studio working with two different models.

Mel did a demo in the morning and then the students had the rest of the day to work.

It will be sad to see everyone leave tomorrow morning after breakfast. It was a fun week and the smiles and closeness of this group photo says it all!

Look for Mel to return again in 2012!

Mel Stabin is here this week teaching a 5-day watercolor workshop to a full house! And what a fun loving full house it is.

The week was started by Mel taking his group down the street from the inn to paint in his favorite “first day” location.

Besides this former church, there are a number of other interesting old houses on this corner.

Everyone found a shady spot to settle into and went to work, after Mel’s morning demo.

At lunch time I loaded up our garden cart with the sandwiches and salads (a complete salad bar) that some of the students had ordered and carted it down the street.

The hungry crowd immediately swarmed around the cart.

Well, at least the oil painters and the watercolor painters in Betty Carr’s 5-day workshop did!

They enjoyed a lively time at the dinner table and in the studio.

We had perfect summer weather that week, which of course meant it was time for a barbecue!

Mark prepare beef ribs, slow cooked over mesquite charcoal and then slathered with his own secret BBQ sauce (it includes a hint of chocolate!)

Everyone enjoyed the feast and were appreciative of the warm washcloths handed out after dinner to clean off the yummy BBQ sauce.

Just a few weeks ago Carol Marine arrived from Texas to teach a 3-day workshop in creating small still life paintings in oil.

Carol is well know for her daily paintings blog and her work, that she sells on eBay.

Here she is doing an “egg demo” – a small still life featuring just a raw egg on a orange plate.

Carol put everyone through their paces creating quick still life paintings – both as value studies and with color.

There was a lot of fruit in the studio for those three days! Luckily the A/C kept the studio cool and the fruit stayed fresh.

Here is a lovely pear painting . . .

And the model for the painting!

On the third day, Carol explained to everyone how to capture your paintings in digital photos and use PhotoShop to crop them in preparation to posting them on a blog and on eBay.

She also discussed how to start a daily painting blog and set up a store on eBay for your paintings.

It was a marvelous 3 days with this fun loving group with Carol as their ringleader!

We look forward to Carol’s return to teach a 5-day workshop in 2012. If you are even thinking about it, don’t hesitate too long before signing up — we are already getting enrollments for this class and the class size is limited to 16.

Lew Lehrman came back for one more time to teach his Travel Sketching workshop.

This time the workshop coincided with a Youth Fair in a near by town.

It was a sweltering day, so the group took refuge under the “Fair Idol” tent. They sketched the sights of the fair while listing to the vocal stylings of the idol-hopefuls.

The fair was a well attended event and had all the requisite fair pleasures – the big white tents,

Food vendors, selling things like Texas Tornado potato chips and lemonade.

Here is Lew helping a mother-daughter team, Elizabeth and Sarah, as they painted their sketches.

Couldn’t be a fair without the kids and their horses.

And flop-eared rabbits.

And what could be better for dinner after spending the day at the fair, but yummy fresh the farm sweet corn.

Paired with Orange/Soy Glazed Chicken Thighs baked over a Portabello Mushroom.

On another night, Lew had the group sketching their dinner. Mark, the chef, did his best to create a dinner with large shapes and clear contrasting colors – like this fresh spinach salad with white mushrooms and red tomatoes.

On dinner sketching night, some of the students contributed to the colorful display, bringing sunflowers and a watermelon purchased from Story’s Farm, where they had spent the afternoon sketching.

Dinner was finished with some White Chocolate ice cream. Mark added the brush of dark chocolate to provide contrast with the white bowl.

Thanks, Lew, for another successful workshop!

I can’t believe it is a month since my last blog post. I guess we’ve just been having too much fun with the workshops.

Now let’s see . . . where did I leave off.

Yes, the wonderful weekend with Larkin Van Horn (she’ll be back in 2012!)

Following Larkin, was another fantastic workshop taught by Rayna Gillman – Deconstructing the Screen.

This is Rayna giving a little trunk show of her own work.

This was a wonderful class made up of both fiber artists, wearable art artists, and print makers. A marvelous convergence of ideas and talent.

If you’re wondering about the pile of white fabric on the tables, it is
the mother lode of machine-made lace. It was donated to us by an inn
guest of ours who was downsizing. The piles use to fill 4 tables, but
now it is down to just 2. It is free for the taking, so if you’re in the
area stop by soon before it is all gone!

The railing on the North Cottage was turned into a drying rack / display!

The rope lines strung between trees in the back of the studio also featured a colorful display every day.

Rayna and Calli talk about screen printing. Calli is the sister of Koo Schadler. Koo teaches an egg tempera class for us. (Koo is coming next year – sign up early as her class always fills quickly.)