Art Workshops - Love or Hate?

I'll be the first to admit I find art workshops challenging on many levels.  First there is the part about learning something new that gets my brain to sizzling not to mention being surrounded by what I always perceive as better artists.  These past six days I've been in such a surrounding.  

Mike Malm, a local yet renowned artist held what turned out to be an awesome workshop on painting the figure using live models.  Four of the six days Mike demonstrated his techniques for painting under different lighting conditions.  Mike would paint in the morning and we would paint in the afternoon.  On two of the days, we painted all day.  I can't say enough about what a wonderful instructor Mike is.  He seemed to meet each of us at whatever level we were at.  My experience would have been made easier had I taken a drawing class in the past.  In spite of my not having had formal art training, I think I did ok.

Here are four of the six paintings I did during the week.  (I still need to photograph the other two.)  I will do some more work on these paintings now that I'm home but wanted to post what was accomplished in the workshop.