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Portraits are one of my favorite subjects, but these days I have to find time for them with so many other demands on my calendar. Luckily, after Christmas is a quiet time, so I have been enjoying this lull to study sweet little faces. Because I am doing portraits, I need to get a likeness, which by nature needs to be more precise, but that doesn't mean I can't have fun with it. Hence, lose brushwork and fat paint in the clothes and background. My favorite portrait painter is Nicolai Fechin, a Russian who moved to Taos, New Mexico, during the 1920's and built an adobe house and studio you can visit today. Fechin carved all the wood cabinetry and doors, and enlarged the house, filling it with paintings of his wife and daughter. However, they only lived there for a few years before they divorced. Still, the yearning for Domestic Bliss is palpable in the rooms of the Fechin Museum, as a sense of loss is somehow beautiful. I hope you will have an occasion to visit this special place and see the expressive portraits of Fechin's lost family.

If you have trouble deciding what to paint, you can always look UP! Clouds are fascinating because they are fleeting and reflect surprising amounts of color from the sun and the ground. As the shapes change, so do the edges, from soft to sharp. Also, they have a shadow and a light side, just like any other object. While painting outside, speed is of the essence, but with Cloud Studies, double that! It's a wonderful way to train your memory and learn to be decisive with your brush strokes. No time to noodle around... put the stroke down and leave it! Often, before I start, I mix up piles of paint in the colors I see in the clouds. That way, you spend less time mixing and more time seeing. Once you get going, it's fun to do a series. They don't all have to be good! Give yourself permission to FLOP! Finally, after you finish, ask yourself, "Do I see shapes that I didn't notice in the clouds?" In this painting, I see a girl running across the sky with arms and legs wide.