Tuesday night I had a group of girls come over to my studio to watch me paint. They are in my church youth group. I think they had fun, but I definitely enjoyed it. The painting got some more work done on it after they left and again today while it was still wet. The flowers are done, but the background will need another application once this one is dry. The reds I used when mixing the background color are very transparent and I don't like how it looks brushed on - I want it very opaque. Unfortunately reds take the longest to dry so it will be a few more days before I can mix and apply a more opaque background that still has that crimson brilliance.
These tulips are front-lit, a light angle I don't normally use because my paintings are usually top or back-lit. I like how confronting the row of them all are together.
The Thanksgiving Point Gardens opened on Saturday and I am so ready for hot weather and flowers. It's snowed and rained since Saturday but the sun is out today and I may take my dog to the canyon and try to soak up every speck of Vitamin D I can handle. I'm sick of drab.

Yesterday I took myself on a field trip and it was such an enjoyable day. I went down to Provo to the BYU Museum of Art and spent hours and hours there seeing their current shows. I even ate lunch at the Museum Cafe. It was like I was in college again (my building, the Harris Fine Arts Center, was across the sidewalk from the museum and I would spend a lot of time in the museum...they still have the same huge, perfect leather lounge chairs). One show in particular was just amazing - the Carl Bloch exhibit. My favorite pieces were the altar paintings.  I just have to mention that four of the five altar paintings have never been anywhere except their native church in Denmark or Sweden, so it's remarkable that they traveled to Provo, Utah of all places, and I was able to go see them, sit in front of them, stare at them and admire them. The figures are life-size, the colors are beautiful, the brushstrokes are there right in front of me, and there were two paintings I could hardly take myself away from - Christ in Gethsemane and Doubting Thomas. It was a good experience.