Who Would Have Thought Overpopulation Was A Good Thing?!

Overpopulate your canvas. Paint with your hands to begin. Don't start with an idea, just see where the paint takes you.

These were some of the suggestions given by the amazing JESSE RENO last weekend at CAROL PARKS STUDIO. Jesse is an amazing artist - this I knew before taking his class! But he is also generous, real and truly interested in guiding other artists! What an amazing soul, I tell you! If you have a chance to take a class from him, absolutely do it! But make sure you give yourself AT LEAST two days with him! One day was not enough by a long shot and I truly wish I had more. But I have a feeling that there will be more opportunities in the future. :)

I took only a few pictures because I was too wrapped up in the energy of all those creative souls! But KELLY, AHNA, TALLY and PILAR, as well as others, all have some great pics and descriptions of the class. Make sure to check them out!


My Santa Cruz Soul Sista MIJA working on her FANTABULOUS painting here! I kept reminding her that Christmas isn't far away! Heh! I don't want her to give it to me - but if she sells it, I hope I'm the first one in line to buy it! Mija has a wonderfully bright and creative spirit and it was a delight to finally meet her in person!

Kelly and Mija at the work table. I think they were complaining about the overabundance of broccoli in their food! See the swirly painting on the left? That's Jennifer's and is SO COOL! I wish I had a close up of that!

The beautiful and smiling JENN hard at work on her painting! And in the background, Jesse's super-duper awesome paramour LANA GUERRA! Check out her work - she's so talented! AND, she has the courage to express on the outside what I feel like on the inside! It was truly awesome to sit by her and watch her create! It was like a two for one class!

Jenn's hands full of paint - just like Jesse suggests! He said that it's good to start out your paintings just adding color to the canvas with your hands and see what shapes come out that spur you onward. I can tell you that Jenn and I really liked that part of it! Heh!

There's my wonky hands after adding purple to a canvas. I can tell you that canvas is now shades of blue and green with a whale. That whale apparently is trying to show up in several peoples' art. Is that Jesse's doing? Hmmmm, I wonder.

The super-talented TALLY O. showing her hands! Her palate of colors was so beautiful! I feel like I learned from watching her there, too! She's so confident in her work, I think!

Here's me holding up my very first painting. The bird came out from the hand painting technique. It looks different now and I'm still working on it. I'll show it some day when I'm done!
And here is my cat Figaro when we got back home. I'm pretty sure he is saying "You will have to take me with you if you leave again!". And honestly, I think it's about FOOD not ME, cuz he had to miss TWO WHOLE MEALS of wet food!! Heh!