Barb has just informed me that we have to do something special when out visit counter crosses the 10000 mark. We have had the counter on the blog site for less than 10 days and we are over 2000 individual hits, a very flattering achievement. Any suggestions? Nothing expensive...we are retired after all.

Today threatened to be thunder and lightning and rain all day so we planned accordingly with Chris and Taunya staying on the boat while Barb and I went to our art classes. Of course it was bright sun all morning and by the time we got back from class it was too late to do much of anything except take Taunya to one of the local malls for a half afternoon of shopping. This turned out to be quite successful with everyone, including myself, getting something for their pains. In my case it was some more movies for out DVD collection, in Chris's it was a really nice Swiss Army watch which was a belated Christmas present, and Barb and Taunya hit Bath and Body and Victoria's Secret like a full frontal assault combined with a right flanking manoeuvre. Before that we all made a visit to West Marine for some essential and non-essential stuff. The essential stuff was some more lights for the cabin including a couple of LED lights to replace the fluorescent one in the forward head which has finally gone to join the big light switch in the sky. Non-essential stuff was more really nice but amazingly cheap shirts and Barb bought a Nautica sundress which is normally $120 and she got it for less than $20. Chris got a great T-Shirt and Taunya got a nice stripped Fresh Produce nautical hoodie too. We had some fun at her expense telling her that we hoped that she realized that there was a camera in the part of the back store where she changed and that the store was known for posting the better videos that they were able to catch on the internet. She bought it until she noticed that some of the stores clerks were trying to hide laughter. She's a good sport so we escaped unscathed.

My art class is different from week to week and the photo accompanying this post is the project for today. It's not something that I am particularly proud of neither is it one of my better works, but it does show what we were trying to learn. Normally in a watercolour you put a background wash on the paper and mask out those areas that are significantly lighter than the background so you can paint them in later. Today we masked out the paper entirely with stuff called Gesso that, when dry, is impervious to paint and then you put your background wash over all of it. Then, for the lighter areas, you remove the background which is easy as the Gesso keep the background wash from being absorbed into the paper and is comes off with a little water. Then you add the rest of the subject matter. An interesting concept especially when you consider that the Gesso can also create a texture on the media surface. I already have a dozen ideas of where I can use it in some paintings that I have planned.