The day I got caught in a Wyoming cattle drive, met Andrew Wyeth’s caretaker and had a naked man swim next to me in a river all have one thing in common: I was standing at my easel painting en Plein Air.
My vocation as a landscape painter is never boring. I always knew it would always be challenging painting out in the snow, ice, heat, bugs, and stormy weather but I never even thought about the chance of meeting any people in my travels. I never know who might walk up to me out there and it has certainly been memorable.
To hear about my painting adventures that I shared recently with Laura King of “Artists of New England”, CLICK HERE !
NEW ONLINE LANDSCAPE PAINTING CLASS STARTS JUNE 1OTH !
The May online painting class filled fast so I am posting the June painting class now so all of you who wish to join us can register and save your spot! I’d love to have you join us!
If you are concerned about missing a class, each week the class will be recorded and available for you to watch on your own schedule.
If you are ready to add some beauty, enrichment and reward to your life, you will want to join us! This live streaming, online class is the perfect cure for the “stuck at home stuff.” If you love painting landscapes and want to learn and utilize the best foundational elements of the masters in your landscapes, now is the time to pick up your brushes and jump in. This is the perfect time for you to practice everything you want to learn in the quiet of your studio before you venture outside.
Warm weather is here ! I’ve been out painting as much as I can in-between the spring showers. I’m looking forward toward to seeing the apple trees in full bloom!
I hope you all are healthy and thriving.
Remember to be kind to yourself and others, think of your loved ones, make time for quiet moments, breathe the fresh air and spend some in nature.
Paint and create beauty as if it counts. Because it does. It’s important to have quality in our lives.
A NEW ONLINE LANDSCAPE PAINTING CLASS STARTS NEXT WEEK ON WEDNESDAY, MAY 13TH!
If you are ready to add some beauty, enrichment and reward to your life, you will want to join us! This live streaming, online class is the perfect cure for the “stuck at home stuff.” If you love painting landscapes and want to learn and utilize the best foundational elements of the masters in your landscapes, now is the time to pick up your brushes and join us. This is the perfect time for you to practice everything you’ll learn in the quiet of your studio before you venture outside.
Warm weather is here ! I’ve been out painting as much as I can in-between the spring showers. I’m looking forward toward to seeing the apple trees in full bloom!
I hope you all are healthy and thriving.
Remember to be kind to yourself and others, think of your loved ones, make time for quiet moments, breathe the fresh air and spend some in nature.
Paint and create beauty as if it counts. Because it does. It’s important to have quality in our lives.
A NEW ONLINE LANDSCAPE CLASS STARTS ON WEDNESDAY MAY 13TH.
If you love painting landscapes and want to learn and utilize the best foundational elements of the masters in your landscapes, now is the time to pick up your brushes and join us. This is the time for you to practice everything you learn in the quiet of your studio before you venture outside.
Our favorite landscape painting season is here. I’ve been out painting as much as I can in-between the many April showers. This spring has been a little chilly, the blossoms are slowly coming out. I’m looking forward toward to seeing the apple trees in full bloom!
A NEW ONLINE COLOR CLASS STARTS ON TUESDAY MAY 5TH.
If you want to warm up your brushes and get into a good color mood now is the time to do that. The best painting season is steadily approaching. Even though this spring has been a little chilly, the blossoms are coming out. Even in the rain today, I see bright yellow daffodils and drifts of tiny blue flowers covering the lawn.
It doesn’t get dark at 4:30 pm anymore. Now that it’s warmer it gets dark at 8 pm. I went out the other night and painted the full moon as it was rising over my neighborhood. I like painting in the dark in warmer weather, the paint behaves nicely. You should try it, you might just like it! It’s nice painting outdoors at night with the melodic chorus of distant peepers floating on the evening breeze. It feels like a very hopeful new beginning. It really is Spring!
Promise yourself that you’re going to get outdoors to sketch and paint. It will be a gift to yourself. It has been raining a lot lately (April showers!) so you can paint in your car or dash out to sketch in between showers.
I fit the sketching and painting into my day after all my class prep work is done. My online classes are such a welcome break to this current isolation. It is fun to see, talk and paint with everyone.
The days have been a nonstop blur for me since mid-March when we all had to stop meeting in public places. I hustled to get my 3 weekly classes transformed into online classes. For my first online class I had only one day’s notice that our classroom was closed. It was a scramble to set up and figure out how the platform worked. I did it, and now we are in full swing!
I know some of you are working full time, but some of you have time available that you’ve never had before. If you do have open time I hope you are taking full advantage of this rare opportunity to do things that you’ve been wanting to do .
If you live far away and have always wanted to study with me now is the time! One of these new online classes just might be a good fit for you!
April 2nd was only 10 days ago. That was the date of the “stay at home” order from the governor. Now it feels like an eternity. Then again not much has changed in my personal life of solitude except there is more environmental solitude than before. Now the streets have fewer cars and most businesses are closed.
Some of you are now working at home or are out of work. Some of my family, friends and students are working hard on the front lines as health care professionals. My thoughts are with them.
I am one of those people who is working more now than I was before this pandemic.
When the big pause first appeared on the horizon, I thought I would take the time to finish writing the 2 books I started last fall. Then, as my classroom buildings began to close due to the spread of the virus to our region, I realized I would need to bring the classes online in order to finish the classes that were in progress. So within a few days I transitioned all my classes into live online classes. What a jump! There were a few kinks here and there, but it was fairly smooth once I figured out what the platform could do.
The big advantage to all of this? All of you who wanted to take classes with me in the past, but lived too far away, can now join a class online! An extra plus is classes will be recorded for students who can’t meet at the exact time of the live class so they can watch it later that week. So if you are one of those who want to study with me this is your chance!
Good news! I moved all my painting classes online! Now you can take a fun class from your home or studio!
Life certainly is changing fast these days and, it can be challenging for some folks. So I am offering sessions of calm, refreshing, focused creativity as the perfect antidote to all this massive change that is ebbing and flowing all around us.
All classes are live! You can ask questions, share your work, get feedback and be with a great group of supportive, enthusiastic painters!
When you register for a class you will be sent a link to the Zoom classroom. On the day of the class you can log into the classroom early so you can familiarize yourself with the format. If you are interested in a class and need more information, please email me at: mbyrom@maine.rr.com
Here’s the inside scoop : I’m surprised at how much I enjoyed painting in the 31 in 31 competition in January. It was a real push to do it. I had to fit it into my regular daily work schedule no matter how I felt, whether I was having a smooth day or a day running around putting out small fires. My days felt like they were full of fire scuffling and still I had to go out and paint something! What started to become perfectly clear to me was I couldn’t get anything done if I stopped myself mid stream in my day and jumped out to paint a picture. It was too much of a mental shift. So I kept pushing the painting time back to the end of the day. It was the best thing that I could have done. I could finish my other work and then turn my full attention to painting. How wonderful! I would find myself outside in the late afternoon, at dusk or after dark really enjoying the quiet of the evening. It made me appreciate winter. I stayed close to home. I painted things I never paint. I changed my technique. I adapted to the cold temperatures and the weather. It was an adventure. I want to do it again.
Now you can come and enjoy the little jewels that are the results of this series. I thought about Monet and his paintings of haystacks and waterlilies. I had my paintings of my little neighborhood and its different moods .
Come join us in celebration of a month of small, intimate moments of winter on Sunday, March 15, 1-4pm in my studio, 102 Wells Street, North Berwick, ME 03906. Paintings in this 31 in 31 Series are available for purchase.
