Paul JACKSON LIFE changing WORKSHOP Details

Ocean Springs, MS, along the Gulf Coast was the site of the latest Paul Jackson "Painting Glass" Workshop.

I have been wanting to attend one of these workshops since the day I took my 5 year old with my mother in law to see him speak in Pensacola. He had just written his first book. Today my son is 17.

I shared a photo with Paul of that first meeting.
Someone there told me, "Allison...focus..you could be doing that same thing! Don't wait too late to master it."

That workshop, which stretched this acrylic painters mind in ways I had never thought possible, confirmed what Paul told me after he and a friend had perused through my website before we met him for dinner that night.

"You know, you are a watercolor painter trapped in acrylics. Go back and re-do some of these in watercolor!"

I attempted to follow along in the class and each time my bold strokes had me LAYERS ahead of the class.

He would say, "Everyone layer this layer...Allison, sit out of this one or you will be finished before ME".

And I am glad I waited. Every stroke he took with his brush clarified why he is the youngest person to be allowed in the
most prestigious watercolor societies.

He has a technique like no other. His work sells on the LOW end for 10,000 a painting, the high end, 240,000. YES DOLLARS.

I was so blessed to have the chance to be taught by him and to be a fly on the wall in his class.

The painting I finished in the workshop was a delight to attempt and I bid to buy the original he did. I will hang it alongside the print he signed for my son when I met him over 12 years ago.

While in Destin with the kids later in the week, I attempted one on my own. It was from a photo I took while in Savannah for the SAVANNAH BOOK FESTIVAL, in an antique shop window, light pouring in.

It represents a meshing of two events that have forever changed my life during this (what I call) YEAR OF DISCOVERY as I approach 45 ~(and what others might term midlife crisis number 2) yet THIS ONE A BIT MORE STRUCTURED :)

I don't know what the years ahead have in store for me, but I can say, creatively, I am ready for them!

I hope you enjoy the journey and perhaps you too can visit a Paul Jackson workshop, or attempt that knitting class, photography exploration, write that novel or memoir or whatever it is that you have been putting off all of these years.

WE HAVE TO EMBRACE OUR CREATIVE SPIRITS- TODAY......TOMORROW MAY NEVER COME.

Blessings!

Allison