I've been thinking about taking this painting workshop for a year. It's in Morocco. It's with an artist I've never met, but if I could corner just one pastelist out there and ask him or her all my pressing questions about how to draw haze, how to better nuance those annoying perky colors I always seem to use, how to draw faster but improve the depth, how to fix my rocks on the face of the mountains that I've been stuck on for months--Well. It would be Aaron Schuerr, and that's an educated opinion based on many years of reading the Pastel Journal. I've been thinking about this workshop as PhD motivation ("If I promise my supervisor that I'll write x number of drafts of chapters a, b, and c before I go paint, then I'll need--nei, DESERVE--a drawing break!"). I've been thinking about the workshop as the natural combination of two of my interests (Africa and Drawing! what could say Stephanie more?!). I've been thinking a workshop in Morocco is easier to get to than a similar workshop with the same dude in Montana.
I've had lots of thoughts about this workshop, even in my sleep. The other night I dreamed I was almost bitten by a poisonous snake while camping in the Atlas mountains. Luckily, in my dream, one of my braver and cleverer friends was in the sleeping bag next to mine, and while I was busy going, "ooh, look at the stars!!" he was busy saving me from deadly snakes. I managed to go back to sleep by telling myself there are certainly no snakes high up in the mountains.
The next day when I told that friend about my dream, he said, "I held a snake once in the Atlas mountains!"
Great.
Still. I'm going, I'm taking my sleeping bag, and I'm hopeful. I'm think I'm going to get better at drawing rocky mountain faces and hazy mornings, and I hope that I sleep next to someone brave!
