I learned last week that my painting "Snail Mail" will be featured on the cover of the upcoming Best of America, Watermedia II book published by Kennedy Publishing. I owe a big thank-you to my buddy Pablo Villicana Lara, who pushed me to enter this competition. In a totally marvelous turn of events, he will be featured on the cover of the second book in this set (it's divided alphabetically). You can learn more about the Best of America series here.Back in February, my painting "Hollyhocks" was accepted into the Missouri Watercolor Society's annual national show, which qualified me for signature status in that organization. MoWS also sponsors online shows for members and publishes an informative quarterly journal online.

And last, but not least, Paul Kasmir bestowed a Sunshine Award on my blog. After discontinuing his previous blog featuring whimsical art, Paul has reappeared and is showing his new abstract works. Please go to his blog and have a look around -- he's got some wonderful new paintings and also a bunch of links to other sections of his site. Rather than passing the award along to just 12 others, I'm going to ask you to pick any of the excellent blogs on my sidebar and pay them a visit.
That's it for tonight. I'll be back soon for the long-promised followup on the masking tutorial.

