MERRY CHRISTMAS, HAPPY NEW YEAR, etc.   There’s nothing like “Last Minute”!!!  This card was sketched at Duff and Michelle’s office party.  They had darling six foot tall basketry lighted deer in the courtyard.  It was dark and they were lighted.  I couldn’t figure out how to put lights on light-colored deer with a night background.  So this morning I added acrylic paint to get some sparkle.  Sometimes you gotta substitute. Remember we were going to retire from teaching?  Susan McArthur is building us a gorgeous new website(not quite finished, but you ca ..read more

Sorry for the long delay.  Here’s a bit of a synopsis.  June was workshops at  Carlsbad and Sebastopol, CA, (darling town), Coupeville, WA, Oregon Society of Artists in Portland, Lakewood Performing Center in Lake Oswego, OR, Sun Valley and Salt Lake City.  August was Grand Rapids and Lowell, MI and Sept. was Petoskey, MI, Dillman’s Resort in WI, White Bear Lake in MN, Ann Arbor in MI and back to Grand Rapids to film Season Three for PBS.  Somehow I don’t remember October.  November was a Teacher’s Workshop and that took three solid weeks of preparation.  It ..read more

We are in Ann Arbor, Michigan with one day to go in the last 0ver-the-road-workshop.  Then one day to drive to Grand Rapids and begin filming Season Three for PBS the next day.  WOW!  Season Two, sponsored by YOU has been approved by NETA and suddenly, we are going to film the next season (in four days:  13 Episodes).  It has been months to get approval.  We filmed last Fall.  No, I’m not ready.  The drive over Monday will be interesting.  But, Hey!, thanks for supporting us with donations so we could do Season Two!!!.  I’ll let you know when i ..read more

The workshop schedule has been a mess!  First cancellations, now, as of today, they’re back!   I bought groceries for a whole week  yesterday and we leave tomorrow.  Now you have an opportunity to join us in either the Life Process Center in Lowell, Michigan the 31st, 1st and 2nd of Sept., or in Petoskey/Traverse City, Michigan the 7th, 8th, and 9th of Sept.  Think of it as a POP-UP and join us! Life Process Center:  kbechtel@lifeprocesscenter.org, 616-897-7842 Crooked Tree Arts Center:  boxoffice@crookedtree.org, 231-347-4337 or 231-941-9488 Dillman’s i ..read more

August 31 through Sept. 2 we’ll teach basic Pocket Sketching in the Franciscan Life Process Center in Lowell, Michigan.  It’s a perfect retreat of extreme peacefulness with woods, meadows and trails surrounded by farmland about 15 miles from Grand Rapids.  We stay right in the middle in the rooms of the FLPC.  You get the feeling you’ve dropped out of all of today’s bad news and negative vibes.  The nearest night life is in Lowell, where there is one of our favorite restaurants right on the Brown River. Come relax and drop out with us while sketching the beauty of this ver ..read more

Definitely back in Tucson and it’s hot! The balance is getting to enjoy some real monsoon storms with mighty clouds. What an opportunity to practice sketching clouds! So let me start with a tip: why stand in heat and high wind when you can sketch from the car (or even house), with air conditioning, no flies, and radio playing music you like? Just a thought. My favorite is the top level of parking on a tall garage at the nearby hospital. We were in Sebastopol, CA, Coupeville, WA, Portland, OR, Sun Valley, ID and Salt Lake City, UT. We had terrific classes with just delightful people. Jamming in ..read more

Welcome back to a good diversion!   It’s great to sketch, because you can control it and you’re not dependent on anyone else while your mind escapes reality. I am planning on this COVOD mess being over by June and have a real, live workshop booked in Coupeville, Washington which is on Whidbey Island across from Seattle and Victoria, BC.  As we drive, normally I book workshops on the way up.  Everyone’s working from home.  Education directors who would have handled bookings, have retired.  I am now making 15 calls to get one contact.  Amazing!  We may dri ..read more

                    HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! Wasn’t 2020 a yukky bear!!!  All our live workshops were cancelled except those that were COVID-compliant.  We miss hugs, jump-up-and-down excitement with success, and “our people”.  This sketch is from a happier time and I love it for the gaiety.   With trying to keep our sanity while under siege, at least we can sketch.  And we can make the sketches happier than we feel.  Judy Pelham named sketching from our travel photos, “virtua ..read more

It’s that time when we normally write Christmas letters ONLY THIS IS NO NORMAL CHRISTMAS SEASON. My favorite tee shirt says it all ”SORRY I’M LATE. I DIDN’T WANT TO BE HERE”. I’m tired of cancellations for live workshops, and COVID-19 compliant workshops are far colder than online workshops. They are informative, but no fun! At least online you can see the demonstrations up close! For those of you who have picked me up on PBS, but have never taken a workshop, I’m offering a beginner’s 5-session online workshop Tuesdays and Fridays at 10:00 MST, January 4, 8, 12, 15 and ..read more

Thanks to all of you who helped finance Season Two, Pocket Sketching with Kath Macaulay.  We just returned home and I still have to get the list of our wonderful donors from the station and GoFundMe so I can thank you personally. We have our clothes unpacked.  The art stuff is still being unloaded. The filming at WGVU was done in just three days:  all 13 episodes!  I can say it’s hard to get the timing right to have the demonstration sketch fit the 26 minute window.   I planned to do three Episodes plein air.  It was raining that week.   So I had th ..read more