Every fall, my painting class does an autumn scene with masked white tree trunks and lots of color. I had done a lot of these, and I didn't get much inspiration from the photo that we were supposed to base our painting on. I found one of my own, and image from the internet of a creek in an aspen forest. This was a lot more fun than the class project would have been.
The last project of the year was a scene with the aurora borealis. For this I also found an image online, and tried to paint it. I tried to follow Ron's example and paint most of it in two layers. After that, I still wasn't satisfied with my painting, so I tried to add a third layer, and that just made a mess. I had given up with it, but at the last class I didn't have anything else that I wanted to paint, so I started over, intending to just do something quick to pass the time. This time I painted all of the color and dark sky in one quick wet-on-wet pass. It turned out better than I expected and all it took to finish it was to add some spattered opaque white stars and some dark trees. Maureen liked it better than any of my other recent paintings, so we used it to have a holiday card printed.
A few days after that last class, I received an e-mail from Ron saying that he had had some problems with the administration for the recreation district that hired him, and he was quitting the job. For the last seven years I have been enjoying the class and the group of students that have become like a family, and it was a shock to find that it was now finished. Several of us got together by e-mail and found another class given by the San Lorenzo Adult School. We visited the class and it looked good, so seven of us signed up for it. It will be quite a change from our old class, but I'm looking forward to it.
