It's winter over most of the country, but here in Southern California, we can never decide what season it is.  After an awful week of constant rain the world outside thinks it is almost springtime.  In fact, it is almost springtime here.  I walked out into my garden today and the tips of my narcissus and daffodil bulbs are starting to pop out of the ground.  In 10 days or so my ornamental plum in the front yard will be a riot of bubble gum pink blossoms.  I only just finished getting the roses cut back for their 3 mos of rest, so everything else must feel compelled to pop into action!  That means my favorite time of the year is just around the corner.

Spring means discovery and its vitality is compelling.  Each day you can experience a change that speaks to growth. 

As far as growth goes, I want to talk about how exciting it is to see the students in our Online class COLOR: Basics & Beyond working on their color understandings.  Julie and I had hoped to inspire students to coak out of their colors the full possiblities in each bottle.  We have them doing all kinds of mixes, check for transparency and opacity and examining how the colors shift and change.  We have over 125 students enrolled and still going.  There are great dialogues going on within the network and some fantastic problem solving as well.  When collaboration blooms we can feel good about our efforts. 

Speaking of collaboration...As an artist and a person I love collaboration.  I am not sure everyone feels that way, but for me it must stem from my years as a teacher.  It seems that a good idea only gets better when you put it out there to get worked on or with others.  Should we be doing more work in collaboration with other artists?  I say YES!  I am enjoying my collaborations with Julie Prichard as we plan our classes.  I have several artist friends that I regularly collaborate with and enjoy creating exercises in which one artist begins and another completes or acts on the pieces.  For me art is about problem solving and what better way to do this than to try to work on something someone else has begun, respecting yet differing from their style. 

If only we could find a way to convince our educational system to recognize that art is the key to keeping minds flexible and keen, that it fosters creativity and problem solving skills and can be done in a team as well as individually!  If only we could really see what is there in front of us. 


                                        

                                                        How many shades of gray does it take to convey shadows?

                
                                                                If you were purple wouldn't you love to be this shade?