The evening ended around 10 pm last night and went well. With the intense busyness of the day, I had time merely to sketch and no time to paint.

I sketched these last week -- a pair of salt and pepper shakes that sit on Rebecca's kitchen table. The practice here was keeping things soft, enlarging what is a very tiny set (under 3"), and trying, as always, to complete the sketch a bit swifter than normal. I see as I've uploaded this a bit of wonkiness to the plate ... good thing I keep practicing! LOL

Today is my technician's last day before she changes jobs at the college. We've spent the last few weeks in small bouts of retraining, catching up budgets, refamiliarizing ourselves with tasks that I will have to re-assum until the posiiton is filled, working through the hiring freeze, new employees in other positions, the 'where's this' kind of questions, and all else. A has been an incredible asset to the Arboretum and right-hand to me, and I'm thrilled for her promotion -- so justly deserved. She will definitely leave a huge gap to fill.

I've another day of writing tomorrow and so the busyness continues. The mild temperatures have begun to give folks a bit of spring fever. I've already spotted forsythia in bloom and I'm itching to get outdoors and paint! Fingers crossed for this weekend.