Tidal Pools - New Painting by Anita Williams

I know I promised to post a painting about a week or two ago. Just to let you know that I haven't been sitting around and eating bon-bons during my summer vacation. This is one of my experimental acrylic paintings. I painted it using a limited palette of blues on yupo paper. I added just a little bit of quin gold for interest.

This was a purely non-objective experimental painting. I wasn't trying to paint anything in particular but I did visualize the ocean during the painting process.

When I took this painting out of my portfolio to photograph it today I named it "Tidal Pools". This is not a literal interpretation of a tidal pool, but an amalgamation of coastal feelings. I grew up close to the ocean. I love the colors of the ocean. I am always fascinated by the variation of blues, greens and grays that can be presenting at any given time. I am most familiar with the Atlantic. I have also visited the Pacific and the Caribbean. This painting is not of a particular ocean. This is not really a landscape. To me the ocean holds mysteries and memories both good and bad. I spent my adolescence with the ocean as my backdrop. I took it for granted. My ankle was severely shattered in a wave six years ago.

Now I look at the ocean with awe and respect. I have tried painting "landscapes" of the ocean, but I was never happy with them.

Stay tuned. I photographed two other works in progress today (we finally had a little sun). I decided to post this one.

One Class To Go!

Oh-Kay. I googled grad school funnies and found this. I tried to google the profession known as "dick" and found nothing. Perhaps I need to refine my Google search. I am not quite sure what a Renaissance dick does, but I would certainly like to know. I appeal to the knowledgeable people in blogland. Please enlighten me!

I just finished my 9th class in the series for my 27th graduate credit toward my Master's degree. Woo-hoo. One more class to go! I plan to finish before the end of July.

I am not going for my MFA. I am just going for the M.Ed. in Educational Development and Strategies (or something like that).

Today I finished a class on Brain Based learning strategies. My fellow students (all professional teachers) were teaching classes on DeadFish ball. (a variation of volleyball), TSEGball a football/basketball hybrid, Creative Tie-Dye, Ladder Bowling and Creative Cooking. We were using inductive teaching practices. We had fun. This was a marathon, five (nine-hour day) course.

We also learned how to "load, cock and shoot". ( B-Ball strategies haha). Yes. My mind is definitely in the gutter.

Do not get me wrong. This was an intense class full of inductive learning. I am just exhausted and a little tipsy.

I will take one more class in July and afterwards I will have met all the requirements for my Master's Degree. Woo-hoo. I feel a celebration coming!

For Poetikat

For my good blogging friend Poetikat, here is the promised Garrison Keillor autograph. He is an amazing writer, storyteller, performer and advocate for the arts. No wonder I am a gushing fangirl. Please enjoy.

Thank you for tagging me with the Awesumm picture. I tried to complete this the other night. For some odd reason I uploaded 40 of the pictures, tried to delete them and subsequently deleted the meat of my post. Now, two full graduate class days later, I am returning to the post at hand. Thank you for your patience. In my free time I have been working on a painting, which I hope to post by the week's end.

Poetikat tagged me as an Awe-Summm Queen of All Things. So here are seven things that are awesome about me.

1. I am a collector of worthless, trival knowledge.

2. I am a closet meteorology geek.

3. I returned to school in my thirties and began a teaching career at the age of 45.

4. I daily influence the minds of impressionable adolescents.

5. I have strong opinions and share them with anyone who cares to listen.

6. I can hold my own in a pub with male and female friends.

7. I make the best French toast in the world!

I will ask anyone who would like to participate to steal this awesumm picture and share their own seven awesumm qualities. I would really like to hear from Shazza, Barbara Pask and Winifred on this one. Thanks again Poetikat! You are a true blogging friend! Please visit her blog, I've linked this post directly to her site.

Stay tuned...a half decent painting should follow soon!