I have BIG news! I applied for the Plaid New Horizons award and won! Plaid has a long history of promoting artists and designers by working with them as licensing partners and supporting CHA Designers with this ongoing award. They had announced they were giving two awards this year instead of their long standing single award. After receiving over 80 applications, they had trouble narrowing it down to just two so they added a third award! This is truly generous, given the past year’s financial situation! I’ll be using the $1500.00 award to further promote and build my BRENDA PINNICK COLOR U ! Thank you Plaid!!! A big congratulations also to Tiffany Windsor and to Linda Calvert Jacobson, my fellow recipients – I’m in good company!

TRADE SHOW HANGOVER – That’s what I call it…the sore feet, the aching legs, the sensory overload. This time it’s lasted for three days! I love going to trade shows and I love it when they’re over! I came home on Wednesday night and took Thursday off. I mean, really OFF - no checking emails, no unpacking, nothing. I made dinner, that’s it. As I’m wandering around facebook, I’m seeing a lot of pictures taken at the shows (consumer and trade show both) and decided to re-visit my last vacation photos instead. This is a plein-air pastel painting I did of the sunrise at LosRocas in Costa Rica last summer. The tricky part of plein air painting is capturing the light as it changes so you have to work really fast. Plein-air painting for me is about being in the moment, not about producing a masterpiece. If that happens, that’s fine, but what I love about it is being so focused and keenly aware of everything around me. The smells, the sounds, the changing light…can’t you just feel the ocean spray?

©2009 Brenda Pinnick-all rights reserved

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