Tomorrow we'll be painting landscapes at the Calistoga Art Center. I'm going to gather up and bring down some of my paintings to illustrate different things, which I haven't done before (why did this not occur to me?). I'll bring in one of my cloud paintings, from a series I did several years ago, as well as a landscape or two.

And I just printed up photos I took last weekend at Elkhorn Slough and driving up the coast north of Santa Cruz, to add to the collection of photos we can choose to work from. 

The weather has cooled off a little, too. It's going to be a fun day!

My illustrations have been approved - hurray! I'll scan and send in the final images. And today I sketched Calistoga with Joe from Sacramento. The weather cleared up and was just about perfect, and we drew the Napa River and Calistoga City Hall. What fun! My next Sketching Calistoga workshop comes in two weeks, on May 22nd.

You can see some of the results of my sketching, both today and in recent weeks, on my Line, Color, Paint, Joy art blog, and on my Napa Valley Art Workshops website's Sketching and Drawing page.

Spring has burst into blossom, and then hidden in the rain, so many times so far this year that I've lost count. The experts are saying that we've pretty much seen the tail end of the rain for the year now – which I'm happy about (although I'm very glad we've gotten enough water for the year). I've been itching to get out sketching, and the rain does dampen things a bit too much for drawing in it. (It's fun to draw people in coffee houses, though – as long as they don't get irritated.)

Another reason I'm happy to see sunshine is that my "Sketching Calistoga" workshops are coming up! I'll be teaching them on some Sundays from May through the beginning of September, with the first one on May 8th. While we can always duck into Calistoga's very cool coffee shops, my plan is to walk around to some scenic delights downtown (hidden and not-so-hidden). I'll be getting out there even sooner myself....