For my next trick

First of all, I must thank all of those who expressed birthday wishes to Grannie. She LOVED it. Some of you sent emails direct - others left wishes here, in my blog. She has seen all of them and she is SO pleased. My inclination is to thank each of you, individually, but the constraints of time and business I'm currently faced with with force me to do it here. So thank you, all of you. She had a wonderful birthday, full of family, food and Chianti.

My Art teacher, Marilyn, has suggested I try a technique, for my next painting, I have never tried before. The idea is to paint a canvas with a thin, medium tone of Burnt Umber. Thinned with turpentine so it's fairly transparent. Then, using a cloth, remove paint to create highlights, using turpentine on the cloth in areas which need to be really white, and then add the dark areas by painting in with a undiluted Burnt Umber (very Dark Brown). This is a "wet in wet" technique. Ala Prima, if you will, which means the whole painting is done in one session. I'm going to try it this weekend.

Wish me luck.