St.Patrick's Day Wine Tasting & Corned Beef Feed

I've donated one of my little paintings to the Silent Auction at this event organised by the Tahoe Rotary Club. A bespoke frame has been kindly donated by my framer Doug Rousse of Lake Tahoe Master Framing - thank you Doug! Tickets are still available - come on over it's all for a very good cause.*

SOUTH SHORE'S MOST POPULAR SHINDIG OF THE YEAR!

Grand Prize Hawaiian Vacation! Plus $1,000 towards Airfare - Bid on 100 Vacation Accommodations, Packages Around the USA, and Much, Much More!

It's the best Irish party of the year! The Tahoe Douglas Rotary Club will host the 40th Annual St. Patrick's Day Wine Tasting and Corned Beef Feed on Saturday, March 15, 2008 starting at 6:00 p.m. It is the best Irish party of the year and a true Lake Tahoe tradition! This lively fund-raiser will be held at Harrah's Convention Center and everyone is invited to come and join in the fun! Enjoy a complete Irish buffet dinner featuring corned sirloin of beef and cabbage with all of the trimmings. Sample generous pours of premium California wine from 12 different wineries. Music and dancing by JJ Entertainment DJ. It's a full evening of St. Patrick's Day celebration!

*The mission of The Rotary Foundation is to enable Rotarians to advance world understanding, goodwill, and peace through the improvement of health, the support of education, and the alleviation of poverty.

The Foundation is a not-for-profit corporation supported solely by voluntary contributions from Rotarians and friends of the Foundation who share its vision of a better world.

Pitcher & Peaches

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I was given a few beautiful white pitchers by a friend, Lon Marie who is clearing out because she's moving to Hawaii to marry hunky surfer/artist Derek Glaskin - how exciting! I couldn't wait to get them home and start painting them - their simple forms are stunning, and the effect of different light on them has given me lots of ideas. Expect lots more of these paintings!

What is Art?

I love this, it's brilliant fun! I nicked it off my artist friend Donald Neff's blog, who nicked it off another artist...isn't that part of what art's all about? watch this and see.

Afternoon Sun

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This is today' s Painting a Day, Afternoon sun, Oil on Panel, 4x6".

When I was ill recently, and spent a few days languishing on the sofa. Fortunately, the light is amazing in the lounge, and I took the opportunity to watch the shafts of sunlight moving over all the objects in the room - in this case, the curtain, a fossil, a speaker, a Yoga manual and a Physics book. It's amazing how ordinary objects can become infused with a subtle magic when the searchlight of sun passes over it through the angular obstacles of architecture. I did several pencil sketches, and saved them for my daily painting when I was feeling better.

China cup & Teapot

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I had a meeting with Billy McCullough of the very lovely Dragonfly Restaurant in Truckee, California yesterday, and he has offered me a couple of spots in their exhibition program! The first will be this August in the bar area, and then in about a year, the swanky Sushi Bar area which will take several very large canvases. Check them out at www.dragonflycuisine.com

Teapot & Spoon

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Before we went climbing this morning I painted this little study. I'm really pleased with the cloth underneath the teapot - I've been thinking about using a Gustave Klimt-style decorative theme for the background of the large Tea Party painting. I happened upon the idea of using floral fabric when I was sketching a mock 'tea party' out on the deck a couple of days ago. By lucky chance I was drying our floral comforter on the washing line, and so it provided a natural backdrop for the compostion. I found this pink fabric in a cupboard whilst I was hunting for still life ideas - it was a curtain from my precious Matilda (the'76 Dodge Camper we travelled for 18 months or so in)

The spoon is deliberately large, and is a referance to the Mad Hatter's Tea Party in Alice in Wonderland. I'm going to play with the scale of things in the painting, partly out of the Wonderland influence, and partly because this painting will be about being young and everything seeming bigger than you. After all, little girl's tea parties are about pretending to be a grown up - mixing sloppy mud in a cup instead of tea, and wearing mum's big shoes and makeup.

Climbing at the Momma Cat Boulder

Taylor & I went out to the Momma Cat Boulder in Woodfords today, and as I'm still not well enough to climb, I sketched Taylor while he pulled down on familiar problems. It was bright and sunny, and a real pleasure to be outside.

What was also brilliant, was that a family was there, climbing, and we got chatting to them. Later, as I was sketching Taylor, the lady, Norah popped her head around the corner of the boulder, "were you on the radio the other day?" Yes! somebody heard it! Anyway, it turns out they'd been wanting to go climbing for ages and hearing me talking about climbing on the radio spurred them on to go out - and it was their son's first time climbing! I was so pleased that I had that effect on them, I'm still grinning! Nice to meet you Norah, Alexander and Houston (with the cool bob hat)