I’ve been working on a watercolor just for St. Paul Rodeo’s poster contest. All artists in the Wild West Art Show are able to submit two entries for the poster contest and the winner’s piece is the artwork for the next year’s rodeo. For the past four years I’ve entered the poster competition and have been seeing what the panel of judges have been choosing from and the winners. So, this year I thought I had a good idea of what they might like.

Here is a little glimpse of how "Red, White, and Blue" started. You will notice the lack of pencil marks on this piece, because I've been working on "drawing" out my paintings in a light wash of watercolor and one of my liner brushes.

I participated in the Quick Draw at the St. Paul Rodeo Hall of Fame Dinner this year. So, what is a Quick Draw anyways? Well, artists have a set amount of time to create a finished piece of art that is then auctioned off. This particulate Quick Draw, we had 90 minutes and could have a drawing done ahead of time.

I've been working on "drawing" with light washes of watercolor with my liner brush, so I didn't have a drawing done before hand. Instead, I just dove in head first ...

Come to Salem and learn how watercolors can be made easy to paint! This class is limited to 15 students and will be in the classroom at Hobby Lobby.

This class will be for everyone from 12 - 99 years and the drawing is already done for you. All materials are included, but you're welcome to bring your favorite watercolor brushes.

In class you get to mix your own favorite colors of sunset with the dark green forests skirting snow covered Mt. Hood. You can have the clouds reflecting their colors in the still waters of Trillium Lake. This is a follow along style of class, but it's very customizable to expand your painting into something uniquely yours.

You might be wondering what a cowboy, horses, and a boarder collie all have in common over than working on a cattle ranch. Well, they are all part of the first (fine art) graphite pencil drawings that I’ve created in a long time. 

Flowers can really brighten up a room and floral crowns can really bring a smile to your face. Last week there was a really fun event at The Shabby Chic Bride in Salem, Oregon which was lead by Sheena with Alice's Table.

Sheena did awesome leading all the ladies in creating their own floral crowns and Jason of Divine Distillers made some tasty mojitos with his own special mix. 

Yesterday was Monday, but it was my Saturday. Which meant that it was a perfect day for an adventure! John was wanting to go fishing and I wanted to a new-to-us place. That's when I mentioned Opal Creek and showed him a photo of someone fishing there.

Now, keep in mind that we both had backpacks and were prepared for what we were heading into, especially with our late start for the 8.5 mile hike ... but first an iPhone pic of the real heroes of our day, Kona and Coal.

These two were real troopers. This was our first long hike as a family and the only complaining they did was when the three of us left John on the river to do a little scouting.