A New Year

A rest stop on the central Oregon Coast

Happy New Year!

I am always glad to welcome a new year. We arrived home last night around 8:30pm, too tired from an exhausting drive down and back to celebrate the life of my father-in-law who passed away on the 14th of December. We did not stay up to ring in the new year.

Due to weather and road conditions our 15 hour drive to Sonora, CA turned into an 18 hour drive. This is how we have always started our visits to my husband's family. I decided that from now on, we make that drive over 3 days and arrive rested and ready to visit for a change! The memorial was bittersweet as they usually are and we enjoyed a loving visit with family before heading back home.

I had hoped to go on a short excursion to Yosemite National Park which is a 2 hour drive away from where my in-laws live but alas, I was just too tired to go. I had hoped to paint a sketch in the short time I would have had there. Oh well, I would rather plan for a proper excursion, say at least a week, where I can do such stunning beauty justice.

Today I spent the day cleaning and putting things away from our travels, doing errands, and getting ready and set up to hit the ground painting tomorrow. Tomorrow the 30 paintings in 30 days challenge starts. I will also be studying and improving my art business/marketing. There may be a few changes to my blog and website.
In addition to keeping quite busy this month with the challenge and study of the business side of art-making, I got the following color system to study for Christmas:

Munsell Student Color Set

I have studied other color systems in the past such as Itten's but never Munsell's. I am intrigued and have read of several artists who use it. I like the way it is organized. I will be studying this in between everything else so it will be a bit broken up. I will post the completed exercises in their own posts with nice labels so that anyone who is interested can easily find just the Munsell color posts to read about.
Well, I must get my gear ready to head out so I can paint wave study #16 tomorrow and then off to bed. Still trying to catch up on sleep.
This is going to be fun...and a lot of work. Stay tuned!