Painting at Sturt Summer School

My holiday treat this year was going to Sturt Summer School to do a class it oil painting with a pallet knife with David Middlebrook . David's paintings are devine and quite inspirational - make sure you look at the details. I've always wanted to take formal painting lessons and I think David brought out the best in all of us. The entire class was terrific - people, teacher, places we went, things that we drew and painted. And I'll also add that it was incredibly challenging and frustrating at times - but I looked on it as a personal challenge to stick at it until I got it - and it was really rewarding as a result. This is what I ended up with :

So they're nothing I'd put on my wall, but the main idea wasn't to have something finished, just exercises really. And we did lots of sketches too. I haven't done so much consistent drawing since art school. I'd highly recommend any of David Middlebrook's classes to anyone, at any level.
--melly