Vacation

Here's a picture of Aspen chillin' in my studio. Check out those chubby cheeks - I couldn't think of a cuter studio companion. I can't wait until she's old enough to have her own little easel!

She's standing in front of my huge pile of gold picture frames, which I just organized last week. Nate's been bugging me about how many frames I have sitting in my studio ever since he walked in and saw how much wall space they're taking up. I really shouldn't buy any more gold frames until I use all of these - my work just doesn't look good in them. The painting in this picture is in a "silver" frame, which isn't really silver at all, but more of a cool gold. This color of metal leaf does my paintings more justice than yellow-gold.

I've been spending as much time as possible in my studio lately, so I'm making some progress in finishing enough paintings to fill all of those extra frames!

Tomorrow morning we're heading down to Telluride for a week's vacation. We're renting a condo and we'll have friends stopping by on the weekend. I'm planning to do a lot of hiking and relaxing in the lodge, and gathering a ton of reference material for my show at the end of the year. I'm taking my pochade box so I can do some plein air painting while we're there - I haven't painted outdoors since last fall, and I've got Estes Park Plein Air coming up in August, so I'd better get back into it!!