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WHAT A WEEK!!!

The Saint Patrick’s Day festival brought in over 400,000 “visitors” to Savannah. Included in their numbers were a niece and her three friends from Charlotte, NC. and a nephew and his girlfriend from Melbourne, FL. Our place was packed. Everyone had a great time and it is always was nice to see family!

Also, many former students flew in for the festivities. Among were three from Los Angeles and a bunch from Atlanta.

Nine of us had a perfect lunch at A.J.’s Dockside on Tybee Island – the day was pristine with clear sunny skies. The conversations were many and lively - they ranged from talk about curriculum to productions to art to just general ribbing and fun topics. It always makes me feel warm inside when former students do well. We talked about their past experiences at school and how determined they were as students – it is easily see why they are doing so well now.

The entire group at  A.J.'s

Of the eight - four are working as animators: Rob Miller, Kevin Williams, Eric Cerda and Alex Manesa. It was a real treat for my wife and me to spend time with them all.

Robyn Holstein, Missy Feaster, Charlie Roode, and Chris Grim are young in the industry or are graduating this term.

By Monday, everyone was gone – headed back to work or school. Monday night, Glenn and Eleanor Vilppu dropped by for a visit. Glenn, the master artist had been teaching at Ringling in Sarasota for a week. Now they were headed to Provence area of France to teach for SCAD in Lacoste.

Tricia and Eleanor explore Tybee Island's North beach

This is Glenn Vilppu on location from one his other visits at Hunting Island

On Wednesday, we all headed to the beach- the wives indulged us by taking a walk on the beach so Glenn and I could have a painting expedition. We had an hour or so to do art. As always, painting with Glenn is an amazing experience! His work is really incredible and I learn more and more every minute I spend with him.

We took out our paints and went to it....this my oil sketch on location with the blown sand mixed in

The final of the lighthouse at Tybee Island

On Thursday, I finished my first real oil painting - a still life I had set-up and painted on the back porch.

Here is the under paint for my first finished oil painting

The finished work

And finally – this week I sketched out a ruff layout for a project in development.

My ruff layout  sketch for an upcoming project.

So it was a very diverse, wonderful and progressive week….oh and there’s the next lesson – part 2 of the center of gravity…almost finished that one, too.

Still Animated!