Feeling Springy

Howdy, looks like the days are getting longer and the sun is getting stronger. One thing we don't get a ton of here is 'California Skiing/Riding'. Most days on our mountain get socked in and we only get to see the sun for a few hours in the morn and early afternoon. Yesterday was a major exception. That bright ball of fury was on stage all day long and we rode as long as we could stand it. I wouil like to take a moment to say that no, I never did take my exam written or on-snow this season. Part of it was lack of snow, part of it was my work injury, and still some of it is my own lazy-ness. It's fine though, there's always next year. I can't imagine the world will stop skiing and or needing instructors. I can say on a wildly positive note that yesterday's sesh was one of the best since...well, the last time. Being from Cali and growing up skiing the sierras, from the late 70's all the way up to when I moved away in 06' there is one thing that gradually became worse. Crowds. Even when I left almost 20 years ago lift line waits were 45 mins. Hopefully I don't shoot myself in the foot here and considering I have under 20 followers I don't really see that happening. I snapped a couple of shots off the lift of the lower mountain yesterday. Keep in mnd that this is at 11:00 a.m. on a Monday the day after Easter. I gather that a lot of people probably had their fun on Fri-Sat-Sun, but still. The groomers were where it was at yesterday, it gave us a lot of time to work on form. Here, check out these shots of our home mountain yesterday...

Not a gosh dang soul in sight, This is one of the many reasons we love the Inland Empire/PNW. It was our last day going up for the season as well, so the send off was perfect. All that being said, I'm going to take this opportunity to re-read the PSIA's tech manual this summer. I might as well iron this stuff into my brain, especially if I plan on being an instructor sometime soon. We did have a lot of fun this season and we're already looking forward to next season!

The night was capped off with a fire in the backyard, some bbq chicken, and fetch with Stan.

Kat and I have some camp trips already lined up to Priest Lake in ID. One of our favorite places to escape and relax. So, I am pretty excited to get some shots of the surrounding area for those that are unfamiliar with that area or just interested in seeing it. Alright, lets talk art for a few. I'm still working on Stormshadow, I am about to go back in to the outline and darken it up. I think I stated that this was inspired by 80's comics and registration lines were pretty heavy so, I will need to re-visit that. I still have quite a bit of 'tuning' to do on this one, but of course I'll keep you abreast of the situation. Here is where the Stormshadow piece is sitting as of right now;

It's been a fun piece to work on and this one tested my color mixing as far as skin tones. My color theory teacher from AiLV Amanda Farrar would be proud of the research I had to do to try and balance our multiple tones on one person. Anywhoo I do as always appreciate you taking a moment out of your lives to check my blog out. A lot of things have changed for me in the last few years and I am happy with those changes. It can be hard getting old without the family structure I was raised with. Neither of us have anything in the way of support, in fact it's quite the opposite. I guess what i'm trying to say is that sometimes you are the support even for yourself. It starts with understanding who you are and what drives you.