I took a road-trip to beautiful, Laguna Beach, California, with my sweet, husband, Jason and my four and half month old baby boy, Zackariah, so that I could deepen my painting practice and gather information to begin teaching workshops. I spent the week with ten other women artists, each completing a painting, while learning some of Paul’s mandala techniques.  It’s always difficult for me to decide on which image I want to paint, but I was inspired by a huge painting of the Buddha’s head, which hung on the wall next to me in the new studio, and I wanted to choose something that I had never done before, something advanced, like a face. I went through the usual journey with the painting, from working in stacatto and overthinking everything, to letting everything flow, and allowing myself, as my teacher would say “Yield to the Paint” and as I would add “Yield to the Process”, which is sometimes liking it, and sometimes not liking it.  Ultimately, I ended up loving it and couldn’t believe I had created it, or better yet, had allowed it to be created through me.