The past few months I've been working on a new painting technique called Acrylic Pouring. The paintings below are some of the results of my efforts. I have become hooked on this new technique and find myself dreaming about it.

I posted a couple of videos on my Art E Studio Instagram page as an example of how this technique works. The sound is turned off in the video because of background noise I have no control of.

I'm offering classes on how to do this in the near future. The classes will be on Friday afternoons only and will be limited to two students at a time.

Note; The top four paintings are done on round canvases. The black or white backgrounds were added for printing. Clicking on each image will take you to my art website.

This past weekend Charlie printed my Christmas cards for this year. We chose eleven out of the 25 Christmas paintings I've done so far.

The photos below show part of the production of making Christmas cards. The top two photos show me scoring and folding the cards after Charlie printed and cut them. The next two photos are piles waiting to be folded. The last photos show all eleven cards folded, waiting for envelopes and clear sleeves. Click on each image to get the full view.

Go to my website to see all 25 Christmas paintings I've done and order your favorites soon. Christmas is fast approaching. Here is a direct link to my Christmas Collection

My dad recently retired from making my miniature stretcher frames and easels. But lucky for me he trained me as a framer years ago at Lakeside Gallery. Learning this trade has been very beneficial to me throughout my art career. It has saved me thousands of dollars. Plus the quality of my work is far better then the cheap stuff from China and it shows.

Below is a sideshow of how the chopping and joining part of the process is done.

Last week on the way into my studio I heard an announcement on the radio saying Oprah was going to do a live event on Maui called "Live Your Best Life". The radio show hosts, Alakai and Kevon were giving away tickets. They mentioned a website to sign up on, I jotted it down so I could check it out when I got to the studio. The website www.sharecare.com is a heath resource site. I singed up on it but didn't have time to check it out.

A few days later a Village Gallery co-worker and friend of mine strolled into the gift shop while I was working and calmly said she just won 2 tickets to see Oprah! I was so excited for her and asked how she did that and if she needed someone to go with her ( wink wink ). Her husband would be accompanying her and she sent me the link to the article about the show. In the article it said they were giving away tickets to people who singed up on the website I had already signed up on. It said free ticket winners would get an email. I checked my email and sure enough there was a winning notice from the site!

I had to act fast because the code giving me the free ticket was about to expire. Lucky for me the gallery was very slow, giving me the chance to log onto eventbrite website to process my ticket. I made it just in time! I was going to see Oprah!

Monday morning June 26th, I was up bright and early and excited to see Oprah. I wanted to get an early start because I had a feeling the line getting in was going to be huge. The drive to the Maui Arts & Cultural Center is about an hour drive from Lahaina, depending on traffic. I didn't get the half hour lead I wanted but I did leave in time to for the doors to open.....or so I thought.

By the time I decided to take pictures of the lines of cars trying to get into the event I had been in stop and go traffic for half an hour. I was getting pretty nervous and kept reminding myself to relax and be patient as I watched the car clock. Driving past all the people waiting in line as I headed to the parking area, I kept thinking I was going to have a long walk to the back of the line, and by this time I was in need of finding a restroom. I got a place to park way in the back of the parking area, the time on the car clock read 10:30.

Once I reached the back of the line it was moving pretty fast. It really didn't take very long to get into the event. The place was packed! My first mission was to find a restroom, then I could concentrate on finding a place to sit. I found a spot on the grass to the left of the stage. It was a pretty good spot as you can see from the photos above. After sitting there about ten minutes an event volunteer told us some seats just opened up, which I was happy to take advantage of. Now all I had to do is wait along with over 5,000 people for Oprah to come on stage.

There was a couple on stage playing and singing music to help calm the wild beasts. An announcer would come out every so often to assure us Oprah would soon take the stage. There was plenty of cloud cover and a nice breeze to help keep the area comfortable. I was grateful for the cloud cover because I didn't bring any sunscreen and was a bit worried about getting sun burnt.