Happy New Year Everyone!   Well, I am starting 2013 by participating in a 30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge.  Artist Leslie Saeta, whose workshop I attended in Pasadena in September, is hosting this challenge.  She has over 250 participants doing this with her!  I've signed up and will be posting a painting a day for January.  Here's the first one:

I've decided to focus on landscapes this week and use a limited palette.  A limited palette for me is Cad. Yellow Light, Cad. Red Light, Perm. Alizarin Crimson, Ultramarine Blue and Pthalo Green (blue Shade) plus Titanium White.  This will force me to focus on a couple things... one, mixing colours and two, planning colour schemes.    Landscapes are also a challenge for me as I think I don't do them very well!!  I tend to fiddle and I want to just lay on thick paint with less strokes.  I have tons of landscape photos so I have lots of material to chose from!

On the weekend I threw everyone's name from my last newsletter campaign signup into a hat and I drew two names for these paintings:

Congratulations you guys!  And thanks for signing up for the newsletter!  I hope you'll join me and cheer me on in the 30 day painting challenge as well...I'll be posting here daily and those posts will be on FB too!!

I thought I would share this photo of this mis-placed winter resident!  I was certain all the robins had flown the coop for balmier weather, but this fellow must love my mountain ash seeds too much!  I hope the weather stays as mild as its been for him...I think he's a him...!