In February the Indiana Association of Plein Air Painters were allowed to paint inside the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art. It was a wonderful day spent perfecting our skills by copying works of the masters in the American West Gallery and Gund Gallery of Western Art.  We could also choose to paint a live model decked out in western wear. It was really hard to decide because we were only going to be there for 5 hours. I skipped the model and headed to one of my favorite oil paintings by Bert Geer Phillips (1868-1956). As you can see from the photograph, I instinctively stood the same way as the young man in the painting.  He is holding a musical instrument and I am holding a brush!  I wonder how the painting I did would have turned out if I had stood in front of the original by Mr. Phillips in the opposite direction. I have painted many figures from life under artificial lighting but not many from natural outdoor lighting so this was a learning experience from a "master". Many people commented that my version did not look exactly like the original so I just told them it was the young man's brother I was painting. (insert laugh track here).
 Many thanks to the Eiteljorg and Staff for giving us this experience. We were very careful to not get any of our paint where it did not belong!