NATIONAL ART CONTEST-REFELECTIONS

ART CLASS AT EAST SALEM ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

An art class designed to help inspire the children to make a piece of artwork that makes them think "WOW"!!!!! This national contest can be whatever makes you say WOW in art, music,literature, photography and more. (can't remember the rest).

This was my first attempt at teaching anybody anything! And I must say it was overwhelming. As you can see from the fifth photo, there were 30 children. THIRTY! Mostly ages six to ten or so. That's way too many kids for me. I don't think I was able to get across any ideas or suggestions. I tried to show them how to do a little blending but we were using finger paints. As it turns out - finger paints are very transparent (no body at all). So you can't really blend or buildup with them. I never would have thought that finger paints are so hard to work with. Some children used colored pencils and pastels along with the paint. Some choose to do photography. All in all, they seemed to have a good time! As expected, some turned out some pretty good little paintings. A couple of the photos show how good some are and some show whats on their minds. One photo of Rachael's daughter, shows her pride with a vase of flowers.

This entire post is totally screwed up! I wanted to show a couple of photos then some text, then more photos, more text. But as you can see, I can't figure out how to do that. So, my apology to Rachael. I really wanted this to look good. To look like it was posted by someone that knew what they were doing!!! Maybe Rachael can go in under the comments and post a link to this contest site.

Anyway, the very first photo is of my little sweet grandbaby. The owner of my heart! She had a good time. Had 3 juices and popcorn and ran around giving good advice.

PS-I have no idea why there is so much space between my blocks of text. Maybe blogspot has changed something with the formatting. Don't know.

Hope you enjoyed!

NOTECARDS

Well tonight I finally scanned the images I painted to make notecards from. A series of six. Six vintage garden chairs. I painted them on 8"X8" canvas panels. 'Cuz it is a great size. BUT if I had been thinking "notecards" before I started painting then a size like 4x6 or 5x7 would have been far more intelligent. I had to resize the paintings in photo-shop so a couple look a little squished down. Not bad, mind you. I'm posting the scan. If you are interested, I'm listing them in my ETSY shop. (Just not tonight-I wanna go to sleep-must work at my SUPER SHOES tomorrow).

We have several events coming up soon! (We meaning myself and the art community). I am teaching a group of kids this coming Wed. the 22nd. I say teaching! Ha! I've never taught anyone anything. I'll be winging it for sure. Seriously though, I'm supposed to inspire the kids and hope they inspire their parents along the way. I guess my first teaching assignment is best practiced on kids. Maybe they won't laugh or throw spitballs at me! I love little kids for the first half-hour or so. Then I want their parents to pick 'em up-right away! I'll let you know how it goes.

We have a couple other big events coming up. Probably bashing our heads on the wall, with the media hype about the economy, people aren't out much lately. I'll give you those date later. So I'm off to visit a site on MySpace. Have a great evening.

CLUSTER OF POPPIES

This small piece , 6"x6", is a view from the back yard, looking up a small hill or ridge. It is especially pretty with the evening light. Over the years there have been horses or goats or cows in this little pasture. At the moment there are no animals, so the vegetation has had a chance to grow a bit. I painted this with acrylics on canvas panel and it is varnished. It would make a nice gift for an art enthusiast. CLICK HERE to visit ebay and bidding.

Glad you could visit again.

BACK FROM VACATION

WELL, HOWDY TO ALL!!!
I'm back from my mini-vacation. No, I haven't been on vacation for a whole month! Just a couple weeks and the rest of the time I was painting and building a store on ETSY!!!! and playing with my sweetheart, LILY. I have enjoyed my space but I've got to knuckle down and get some work done. I made a trip to a couple of my gallerys to swap work, etc. Spent several days in my sisters pool (you might remember that I paint her gardens real often). I hate to admit that I haven't gotten any yard or housework done at home. We are into our third year of a drought here in southwestern Va. so the grass hasn't grown much (no mowing) but the house-work will just sit here and wait.
I've got a couple of small shows coming up, both in Nov. Will post more info later.

Hope you can take the time to visit my new Etsy shop - just click on the link at the top-right of this page. I'm offering FREE SHIPPING for the months of Oct and Nov. So maybe you can do a little holiday shopping and save on shipping and save your car's gasoline and save time.

TIME TO OPEN

Here is a new painting! It is a larger piece, 24" x 24", painted with oils on a gallery wrapped canvas. It is adapted from a photo I took years ago on a trip to Germany. Such a beautiful place, the landscape is very much like the mountains here in Virginia. This painting is available at The Little Gallery at Smith Mountain Lake, here in Virginia.