Marble Paintings

My mom is a master of a rare Native American art form where you paint animals on broken pieces of marble and granite, using the natural grains and mineral inclusions of the rocks as part of the background. You can find her work at her website, judyates.com.

Though I was interested in art as a young child, I never really took the time to learn any of my mom's skills! Anyway, I decided that now was the time to go and learn, so my friend Dylan and I went and lived with my mom for a month, doing nothing but painting. We saved up a decent amount of money between us and paid for professional art lessons from my mom, and for that month she showed us as many techniques as she could and had each of us paint two paintings!

Even though neither of us had ever painted before, here's what I did at the end of that month: