I have some exciting news that I wanted to share: I am most honored to have  been recently accepted into the Florence Academy of Art's MA in Studio Art program and I've decided that I will attend this program.  The program takes place over 3 consecutive summers (2 in New Jersey) with a final summer that I'll be attending in Florence, Italy.  I have thought about attending the Florence Academy of Art since I was a student at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (2009 - 2013).  I heard great stories about the artists that train there + teach there and it was always in the back of my mind.
  I have been teaching for the past 6 years and am very excited to return as a student.  I will continue teaching while I take classes myself.  This is an exciting new chapter in my life and I look forward to sharing what I learn as I go along.

  I'm currently finishing up a mastercopy commission that was quite a learning experience.  The entire painting has been a really interesting journey.  It's a Dutch genre painting, in the vein of Vermeer (whom I still love) and there's a lot of wonderful little details, including the Delft tiles at the base of the wall.  It's almost like a where's waldo type of image.  I'm going to work on it a little more but it's nearly finished.

  For my classes this week and last week, we investigated the play of light on spheres.  I love revisiting these exercises and really enjoyed teaching these ideas again.  Doing the watercolor spheres was especially educational.

I got some new tools today that I'm pretty excited about.  The first is a beautiful tack/upholsterer's hammer made by C. S. Osborne & Co.  I bought this hammer from Lee Valley and it was shipped really quickly and came in perfect condition.  I previously had been using a lesser quality tack hammer, but this new one is made in USA and is really nice.  
  I also bought some new copper tacks and nails from Jerry's Artarama, which is a fantastic store and they have a great variety of materials.  Below, you can see some images of the Charvin copper nails.  These nails are 7/16" or 11mm in length.  They have a nice point to them and they are made in France.  They're more expensive, but boy are they nice.  They're magnetic so you can use them with a magnetic tack hammer (see last photo in gallery below).  These nails have a squared-off point to them which gives them a hand-wrought appearance .

  The next thing I got were these Paris Canvas copper tacks.  These are longer (5/8") and have a cylindrical point.  They're less expensive, but are sadly made in China.  They have a nice point to them though and they're magnetic as well, so I'm happy to use them.

  I'm all about quality in my materials and I recommend all these tools for those of you who are looking to stretch your own canvas.  To learn to stretch your own canvas check out my blog post: 
​Stretching a Canvas Step-By-Step!