Dori DeCamillis

My student, Lisa Himic, has been taking painting class at Red Dot for almost a year and has become quite a realist painter. Her strong points are her attention to detail and choice of composition, but she excels at the whole process, as you can see. My photo is a little washed out on the right, so blame me, not the artist.

Galapagos Cactus   16" x 20"  Oil on Canvas In no particular order or preference, I'm going to start posting images of  my students paintings and drawings. All students take classes at Red Dot Gallery , Birmingham, AL. Above is Jeanne Alexander's latest piece, taken from a photo of her trip to the  Galapagos Islands. Jeanne has been studying at Red Dot for 5 or 6 years, and loves to challenge herself with a wide range of subject matter. She experiments with different colored under-paintings, as well. 

One of my Tuesday night painting students, Charlotte, missed class recently to attend Girl's Night at the local shooting range. She was very successful at filling her man full of bullets and brought proof to class. Go Charlotte!

This is the final post of my spring trip to France.  Our invitation was scheduled for 8:00, a crazy-late time to eat in my old-fashioned book. Annabelle and I walked through the ridiculously charming village by the light of the full moon, and arrived to a warm welcome of two-cheeked kisses. Thierry and Helene, introduced us to their two kids, their sister Monique, and their friend Jean Pierre. We received a tour of their quite lovely and live-in home, and Thierry apologized for its size, comparing it to the McMansions that all of us Americans supposedly live in. I insisted that our house was smaller than his, but he definitely didn’t believe me. Helene had laid out a spread of hors d’oeuvres in the living room, and we all gathered round for several types of charcuterie, pates, and olives, all paired with wine. The main meal hadn’t even started, and we’d already eaten the best food we’d had since arriving in France. I’d had a week to practice my French, and I m...

The following morning we slept in, got ready slowly, and headed for the nearby town of Pierrefond. We drove in our tiny car through the big forest, and arrived after 10 minutes in a storybook village on a lake with a medieval castle towering up from the center. I hope those French people appreciate everyday the awesomeness of where they live! After a breakfast of delicious pastries from an adorable patisserie (with our usual dietary adjustments) we marched excitedly up to the gorgeous castle for a tour. Pierrefond Castle was build in the middle ages, was hardly ever used because of political reasons, was all but destroyed a few centuries later for military reasons, and was rebuilt in the 19 th century for more political reasons. The wonderful Violet le Duc, who designed Notre Dame in Paris, was responsible for most of the reconstruction and design of Pierrefond Castle, much to my delight. The gargoyles and rainspouts were weird stone animal hybrids, and my favo...