I retired in May of 2015 after thirty years of teaching high school Spanish and eight years of advising undergraduates in the Spanish and Portuguese Department at the University of Illinois. Retirement has made it possible for me to devote more time to my other life-long passions, drawing and painting. Throughout my life I have always studied art and artists via direct observation of works in museums and by taking studio classes. Recently, I have been taking art classes at Parkland College and at the Art Students League of New York, exploring new methods and mediums and sharpening my skills in painting and drawing. In New York, some of my work was in the class exhibit in the ASL Gallery in Manhattan, which was pretty cool. Last summer I participated in a Plein Air workshop at Sleeping Bear Dunes, in Michigan. These paintings are the result of those experiences and my own practice.