Surf Club or If I'd known it was this easy, I'd have done it a long time ago!

                     

Surf Club

It's not all about painting or working.  Sometimes life is just about being.  Settling into a life as a full-time painter I met some very special people.  I've learned to be a freer, more daring woman just by being around them.  The sharks won't get me; the water won't freeze me; it's kind of fun to get tangled in seaweed and it's always good to laugh when you fall down~

Me, in heaven

I started painting outdoors over a decade ago when my children were little and I had a few hours a day to devote to whatever I chose to do. So I went to the beach several times a week and painted.  I actually had my first show based on plein air watercolors I did the year I moved to California.  After that my work changed and shifted to the studio until a couple of years ago when I decided to make a go of it and do this full time.  I moved my studio to Studio Channel Islands Art Center where I met the painters, printmakers, photographers, weavers, etc. who have become my good friends and have forever changed the way I make art and live life.

That second wave looks perfect:)

About a month after moving into my SCIART studio I met an exceptional painter named David Gallup.  David was just getting ready to take a group of painters to the California Channel Islands in September of 2010.  The only thing was that it was an oil painting workshop. I didn't paint in oil at the time but I really wanted to go.  It seemed like the perfect way to break myself in to full time painting.  Immersion is always the way to go. lol  

The best thing about being so inefficient in the water is I use up soooo many calories .  

Little did I know how much the impulsive choice to go on a painting trip with some new collegues would change my life.  I have learned to paint in oil.  I paint outdoors more than I have since that first year and I'm part of a community we now call our "Channel Islands Family." Our love of painting the outdoors, enjoying each other, being physically active and being grateful for every day we walk or swim the earth brings us together.  

Who else but painters and surfers know that one of the best reasons to learn to surf is to get to know the waves better.  Well, maybe poets know, or sailors, or children, or small dogs...

Whoever they are they are good company.  

I don't know why but I love this pic.  Nicely framed Nansi Bielanski

I do know why I love this one.  Here's one of my surfin' sisters Diane Gold!

All of the photos were taken by the ever so talented Nansi Bielanski.