On Sunday, the last day, I took an all day class with a wonderful artist and teacher named Bob Rankin. I have been so interested in abstract paintings recently -- the exact opposite of anything else I've ever liked or done. Anyway, this class was Abstracting realistic art (again, with acryllics) and the class was fabulous. Bob was an art teacher for 30 years and he is the consumate teacher, as well as a fabulous painter:
http://www.bobrankin.com/flash/index.htm
Bob paints very large and I like to paint small. In the class he painted a huge painting in under 19 minutes. Incredible work.
(http://www.boomnc.com/archive/articles_fiftyfabulous_2006sept.html)

Not only did Bob have excellent exercises to loosen us up but he gave everyone individual attention and was very supportive and answered zillions of questions. We did several exercises, with pencil, then with paints and then did a painting on our own with Bob coming around often to check our progress, offering advice and finding the good points in all our paintings. Bob had all kinds of paints and different texture mediums for us to play with and I'm sorry I didn't take more time with those. I did use one (lower left) and love the bumpy effect.

This is what I ended up with. I asked Bob's advice saying: I don't think I quite "got" it -- please critique this for me. He told me I was too linear -- lines too straight and even. As I looked at his work on display I could see what he meant. Still, I didn't want to give it up because I loved the Southwest colors so I brought it home and "watched" it for a coule weeks. I had remembered hearing Bob tell someone behind me: remember, you can always make a collage with it!!!