In the cactus garden

A challenging painting for me, but I enjoyed working on it. This is small, 8" X 10" (20.3 cm X 25.4 cm), acrylic paint on Ampersand smooth finish artist panel. I find the smooth finish harder to work with and probably will not buy any more of these panels.

I did the painting from one of my photos in Israel. Kibbutz Ma'agan Micha'el has a beautiful cactus garden and I took many pictures when I was there in the winter.  I like painting small animals and have other paintings and drawings of lizards, snakes etc. I have four more painting classes, then I'll be going back to some drawing classes during the summer months. There's always something new to learn and improve on with art classes.

We enjoyed our trip out west last week (visiting family) so I'll probably start on a new painting from my photos in Mojave (CA) and/or Nevada.  The rocks and mountains at Valley of Fire State Park in Nevada were beautiful, but I'd recommend going there when it's not as hot. The desert was between 90-100 degrees while we were out west. We did get to go swimming with the grandkids. Fun!