Don Demers, Mary Erickson Workshop

Last week I had the pleasure of painting and learning with old friend and painting buddy, Mary Erickson, and her mentor, Don Demers. The weather was a bit chilly the first day, so us students watched Mary and Don paint demos of local scenes of Venice, Florida from memory. Mary could paint scenes of the Venice beaches blindfolded, I think. She knows the landscape there better than anyone I know. Don managed to keep up with her, however; with a surf filled painting of the North jetties. After lunch, we went out to the beach for some hands on painting.

Day two we met out at the beach at 7 am for the sunrise. Don and Mary both gave demos later that morning. Don's demo of a palm tree along a beach path, and Mary gave an excellent demo relating to the unique structure of palm trees.









Day three we met at Spanish Point. Here, Don gave a demo in drawing accurately with a brush, and then painting. His demo was of the old boat builder's shack. Students painted in the afternoon. I painted the old Gutpill House.












Day four started with another sunrise paint out at 7 am. Afterwards, we went over to Higel Park to watch both Mary and Don paint demos of a sailboat, then the afternoon was spent back at Venice Art Center working on finishing our plein air pieces from memory and using all students and instructors plein air work as reference.

Finally, we ended back at Mary's for pizza, beer and wine. It was a great workshop, I learned a lot, had fun, and met some interesting and talented artists.