How to Paint Colour & Light by Jean Haines

Watercolours With Life: Diary of a New Author was posted yesterday. I read it just this morning. I appreciate Jean's comments, and I want to say from what I've seen of her work that I'm looking forward to her book when it comes out in July. I wish she were on this side of the Big Pond--I'd love to meet her.

I've been lazy about my blog this year. January and February are usually my catch-up months, getting the tax stuff ready for the accountant and organizing the studio. Taxes are done; organizing, not. I'm working on a couple of writing projects, nothing to speak of yet. Most of the art organizations around here don't meet in January, so I'm out of the art loop. I've gotten out of the habit of going to meetings, especially after dark. Maybe when daylight savings time kicks in I'll get out to see my friends.

My Monday class is rolling. They're doing some awesome work. We've been fortunate not to have a snow cancellation yet, even though this area has been hammered for the past few weeks. The Photoshop Elements class and Digital Photography Forum haven't been so lucky. Both were canceled this week. I miss seeing my photographer friends, too. They are both knowledgeable and sharing.

With the computer problems I've had in the past month, I might be forgiven for not posting much. Both of my disk drives, CD and DVD, died unexpectedly the same day. It took me ten days to get them working, and I still don't know what caused it or what I did to bring them back. Then, our Internet and email, which had been flaky for weeks, went into slow motion and were nearly impossible to use. We considered many solutions, including an expensive upgrade of equipment. Then, I called Time-Warner/Roadrunner, and they sent a man out on SuperBowl Sunday just hours before the game. He was good. After checking our modem (barely working), he lugged ladders through the snow out to the cable connection and found the wire rubbed ragged against the trees, allowing moisture into the wires intermittently. Now, the reason I'm going on about this is that in the past we've had technicians who, upon finding such a situation, came back to the house and told us they'd make an appointment for someone else to come and take care of it. Instead, he single-handedly replaced the cable with a line to be buried in the ground after the snow melts. And, replaced the modem. What a guy.