Last night I got back from Kansas City, MO. I was down there for a day to pick up some chairs for my new Gallery/Classroom. The gallery is really coming together and when I get it finished you are going to love the workings of my new classroom. Can't wait to show it off when it is finally finished, stay tuned.

It has been one heck of a busy new year for my classes, demonstrations, gallery, paint parties and it doesn't look like it will be slowing down anytime soon. It is keeping me a little too busy to finish a couple things that I need to work on that I have been telling a lot of my students about. One of those things is my new book that is half written. So once I get the gallery/studio/classroom opened I will make it my first priority to get that book finished.

This week's newsletter talks about reference photos and where to get them if you can't shot some of your own for learning, practicing and using for painting exercises.

Yes to Class at The Antioch Fine Arts Foundation, Thursday, Feb. 15th   6:30 to 9pm

Yes to Class at BeckerArt Gallery in McHenry, Saturday, Feb. 17th    9am to 11:30

So you aren't quite sure what to paint or where to get some good reference materials for learning, exercising and practicing with. I hear this is a problem for many students.

I tell my students to get out there and paint what you know and love, but sometimes when you are learning and practicing you don't have enough references or time to shot references to work from. Well if you are on the internet there is plenty of places to find royalty-free references to work from. I, however, still feel it is important to get out there and take your own reference materials of things you know and love but if you need to get practicing and learning right away and you are using the excuse that you haven't got anything to paint, then I have a list of links where you can find some of those resources for getting reference materials.

A couple of weeks ago I was looking for some vintage photos and this is when I found out how many places there were on the web that let you use vintage photos royalty-free.

Here is a list of just a few places you can find royalty-free photos at or you can go to Google and type in Royalty Free vintage photos, there will be quite a few to look through.

If you are looking for a particular image and you want to pay for that image, there are many places like iStock.com that will sell you the rights to use those images.