Painting is So Much Fun!

Painting is Fun,

No Matter How Many Come!

Gary is a good friend of mine and last week he came to the Community Art Center of Switzerland County 

in Vevay, Indiana to paint this fun beach scene.  

Gary is all in for fun and for learning.

He listens and works hard to understand 

and follow directions.  

Because of that, he always does a great job.

This is his fun flip flop and beach scene.

(Applause)

Some of the things learned in this class were:

1. Creating distance in the sky, water and sand,
2. How to paint a weathered fence,
3. How to draw and paint the flip flops
4. How to paint distant birds,
5. How to let go and have fun.

That last part is often hard for people to do.

Letting go, quit comparing yourself to someone else,

have fun can be so hard.

Why?

Why do we make it so hard?

Our insecurities grab a hold of us 

and start whispering in our ears:

"You're not as good as he is"

"You can't do this"

"Who do you think you are to think you can paint"

Ever hear any of that going on in your head?

STOP IT!

Stop that voice!

Tell that voice to go away!!!

Don't let that voice steal your joy!

Join us for our next class

and leave "the voice" at home!

Here's the list of classes in March created for beginners:

March 14, Paint 2 wine glasses

noon - 2 p.m. 

Community Art Center of Switzerland County, Vevay, In

$20

March 21, Paint this Easter Basket

noon - 2 p.m. 

General Butler State Park

Recreation Center - between the tennis courts and the conference center.

Carrollton, KY

$20

March 21, Paint This Easter Basket

noon - 2 p.m.

Community Art Center of Switzerland County,

Vevay, In

$20

Three opportunities to take a beginning painting class.

I'll be walking you through step by step, not just the how,

 but also the why we do things.

Bring yo momma, yo sissy, your BFF, your posse'

or come as you are.

You'll make friends,

you'll learn something,

you'll have fun!!!

You Can Learn to Paint

You Should Join Us

The Third Saturday of the Month

The third Saturday of the month you are invited to paint with me at General Butler State Park in Carrollton, KY.

Noon - 2 p.m. 

$20 and I supply everything.

We've moved to the recreation center

 near the conference center. 

This past Saturday a group of ladies came to the park to paint this fun beach scene.

Mom and sisters came together to paint

and have fun.

Susan has come several times and has done some great work.

Yep right now she's painting upside down.

There's more than one way to skin a cat ya know.

This is usually where I put my video of the painters painting, but for some reason I can see the video and I can watch the video but I can't transfer the video anywhere.

(Gee I love technology)

But here we are with our finished products.  

Looks at all those fun flip flops.  

This was a great group even if we were few in numbers.  

Some of the things they learned was how to create depth in a sky, how to paint water and sand, 

the how behind laying out a painting.  They learned how to paint sand so it looks wet, how to paint a rustic wooden fence, how to paint grass and 

how to paint small birds in the distance.  

I try to make sure all my students understand the why of what they're doing and to just, "put a stroke here".

Here are the paintings we will be doing in the future. 

 March 21, we'll be painting this charming Easter basket.

You'll have lots of creativity in your basket and what color you choose for your eggs and your grass.  

April 18 we'll paint this fun blue jar with tulips and hydrangeas in it.

You're going to love painting glass.

May 16th we'll be painting this fun lighthouse.

Make it any lighthouse you want.

I'm just teaching a method, you make it your own.

Remember, it's the 3rd Saturday of the month,

noon - 2 p.m.

General Butler State Park

Carrollton, KY  41045

at the recreation center next to the conference center.

$20 and I provide everything you need.

You provide the fun.

__________________________________________

If you've always wanted to learn to paint or draw, 

but life got in the way,

 join my FREE Facebook group

 Bucket List Artists. 

Click HERE to go to the page.

Ask to join and answer the 3 questions that will pop up and you'll be in in no time.

I go live in there Thursdays at 1 p.m.

There's over a years worth of classes 

just waiting for you to join in.  

The key to unlocking the door to all this camaraderie and fun and instruction is answering the 3 questions.  If you don't answer, the door can't open and I want you in here having fun and learning how to paint and/or draw.  

For more instruction, click HERE to go to my website

where I have paid classes, a full blown art course, a free blog with lots of instruction and a free 4 video painting class.  

Click HERE to go to my other website

 with all my available art.  

Hey, thanks for stopping by today and 

let's paint together real soon.  

Getting From Point A to Point B

Reworking From Point A to Point B

I've had a really great week and

 I wanted to share some of that with you.  

I had a mermaid class in my

FREE Facebook Group,

Painter Nation Homeschool Art Club.  

Click HERE to ask to join, answer the 3 questions

and I'll open that door just as soon as I can.

Last week in the Bucket List Artist Facebook group

 I taught how to paint rocks. 

 This week I finished that painting.

This is what the finished painting looks like.

Then I. had a painting I have never been happy with.

Loved the clouds, but. nothing else in the painting worked for me.  Yesterday I decided to work on it some more.  It's funny how you see things differently after a little while.  

Didn't like the background, the bales of hay, the road,

 the barn or the fence.  

I really didn't change that much, but I reworked the entire background of trees and bushes, giving them more definition.

The bales of hay were too green, although when hay is baled it is very green and then changes color over time.  But they were tooooo green, so I brightened up the part facing the viewer and tried to put the ones in the background not as bright as those in the foreground. I reworked the road giving it more definition in the foreground.  I brightened it up and added deeper ruts and more rocks.  I made the fence larger and gave them some weeds at ground level.  I also changed the roof on the barn a bit.  

Anyway, I'm happier with it now.  

Get my 7 Tips for Color Mixing printable which I referred to several times as I made corrections to this painting.  It was all in the values and color as it usually is.  

Click HERE to receive the 7 Tips for Color Mixing in your inbox.

Print it out and keep it where you paint because you will refer to it often.

Enjoy!

Fake It Till You Make It.

A Girl Can Pretend!!!

So far this winter, we have had several very significant snowfalls!

I mean significant!

We had two or three right on the heels of each other that hung around on the ground for about three weeks that totaled well over a foot.

Then we had a brief warmup

and about 3 inches of rain in less than 24 hours.

Then,

I know,

at this point we are all going crazy,
then the rain switched over to snow

and on March 3 we had just under a foot of snow overnight.

I need me some serious summer!!!

One thing about being an artist is,

you can pretty much pretend and paint any season you want.

So I want summer.

NOW!!!

So for right now,

I'm "Pretending".

20" x 10" unframed acrylic on a stretched canvas 

$200

(On my monitor, this painting is more pinky rose than shows on here.  It's brighter in person)

Art Exercise

Heavy Lifting Drawing Exercise

While I'm on the campaign trail for my son-in-law Eric Stewart

for Logan County Family Court Judge,

I haven't painted much.

I take my grandson Caleb out for 6-8 hours per day to canvas door to door

in the 36 precincts in the County.

The other day I decided to try something different.

OK, let's clear this up,

I wasn't drawing and driving.

But, I had my sketch pad next to me and when we pulled up to a house

I had to pick out something and draw it while Caleb went to the door.

It usually takes him about 2 minutes if he gets to speak to someone,

and less than a minute if he only hangs a door hanger on the door.

A few of the drawings I worked on from memory for a few stops

but most of them I did in the 1 or 2 minutes we were in the driveway.

This was my first sheet and I started in the upper left corner

when I spied a wicker love seat nestled among some

really tall pines.

Not all of the drawings I started were finished,

but it was so fun to quickly decide on something

and then try to get it on paper.

If you've followed me you know I've working a lot on drawing

because

I don't do it well.

I thought this "quick draw" exercise might help.

And it did.

This sheet had a little pump house, 

which I don't think I got the scale good on it.

My fav on the sheet is the arbor in the lower left hand corner.

 

We were in Zanesfield and the houses are close together

so Caleb walked from house to house

while I parked and worked on the church on the left for about 15 min.

The house on the right I did in about 2-3 minutes.

 

 The house on the lower right had a zillion angles,

so I was just trying to figure out how to get them.

 I did get most of them correctly,

which is a huge breakthrough for me.

This chair was really rustic and was sitting in a yard

with flowers surrounding it.

The windmill was one of my favs because I felt I made a break through in seeing its parts.

 

This church had those several roof lines,

interesting windows

and its the kind of thing I seldom get right,

but I was happy with this

 

And this is what inspired the whole exercise.

This cute little wicker love seat was snuggled in a pine grove 

far away from the house.

It looked like the perfect end of day spot to unwind.

I'm sure you'll see many of these parts or whole drawings 

working their way into paintings in the future.

Thanks for stopping by to check out my art today.

Artful Campaigning

Artful Campaigning

My Son In Law, Eric Stewart is running for Family Court Judge

in Logan County, Ohio.

I am up at their home in Bellefontaine, OH working on the campaign for a few days.

(it's pronounced Bell - fountain).

Any way

today on the campaign trail,

I drove my 14 year old grandson around out in the county

as he knocked on doors campaigning for his father.

Isn't he just the cutest???

He has helped organize the routes of 36 precincts

with all the people who regularly vote in the primaries.

He has gone out every day to spread candidate love,

and flyers and signs everywhere,

after he has done early morning seminary,

practiced the piano and

done all his homeschool work

every day for weeks.

What we learned along the road today was everyone,

OK most everyone

has an artistic bone in them somewhere.

We were out in the county, not in a city or a town,

but out in corn and cattle country,

and we saw some really cute things people decorate their yards and homes with

to make it their own.

This super cute piece was made by a little old pipe smoking man out of tree bark and other scraps.

When I asked him if I could take a picture of it,

he wanted to show me the real animals he had in his little barn.

He had two little donkeys and one of them made quite the fuss when

we were introduced.

The gentleman was quite the character

but looking at his very neat little home and not a thing out of place barn,

you wouldn't know he had much of a sense of humor

until your eye caught this.

He had it outside on a wall of his garage.

The only decoration I could see,

but isn't it adorable.

 I don't know the story behind this little gem,

but it was too cute not to photograph.

This guy said his yard was a work in progress,

but let us add to it by putting a sign in his tastefully decorated front yard.

You can see the vibrant color of this log cabin barn quilt on this huge grain farm.

The world can never have too many guard dog gargoyles.

Industrial Yard Art.

I told you this was corn and cattle country, right?

Another success story,

as Caleb places another sign in this front yard.

Here's candidate Eric Stewart,

Future Logan County Family Court Judge.

It's late,

we're all tired,

but we've had a great day of campaigning

in the heartland. 

Thanks for checking in with us today.

 

Creativity = Learning Experience

Creativity is a Learning Experience

To create something, anything,

a potholder,

a pillow,

a dress,

plant a garden,

make a bookshelf,

sculpt,

make jewelry,

paint,

it's all creative and it's always a learning experience.

Is there ever a point where you know it all?

I'd have to say no.

There is so much to learn and there are always new materials,

new brushes, 

new fabrics,

once you think you've got it, something changes,

you change,

you progress 

and then you find there is something new to learn.

In my quest to have my own in studio art school with me as the student,

I'm learning so much and always finding more things I don't know.

I've been working on animals and I painted my cat Purdy.

The painting is not very purdy, so you won't be seeing it.

Then I worked on tweaking another painting I did last year.

The reference for this barn is somewhere in Logan County, OH.

This barn is not quite abandoned, but almost.

It's an interesting structure and it was a frigid day when I was there and took this photo.

The painting is dark and foreboding.

It's a little 5" x 7" acrylic on a board and again I wasn't really happy with it,

so, I can't really say I tweaked it.  I basically started over with it leaving in the barn.

But of course I had to change the barn, at least warm it up a little.

It still looks old and cold 

but a little warmer.

As I said, I basically started over, but I learned so much about warming up snow.

Doesn't that sound weird.

Today I warmed up snow.

 

30 in 30 Challenge Wrap Up.

Looking Back on the Last 30 Days

I really can't believe it's over.

I made it through another 30 paintings in 30 days challenge.

This is the third one and before it began I was sure there was no way I could do it.

And yet, I did.

Need some proof.

They're not all on here.

The template I use for these does not have one with 30 spaces.  

But it has been great

and I learned more this time than the other two challenges I participated in.

I learned to draw or sketch out my painting first.

I changed the composition of several paintings once they were on paper and I could see some of the problems.

I learned a lot about brush strokes in oil,

I learned a lot about shadows in acrylic,

I learned to let go and have some fun.

I can almost look at every painting and point out something I learned.

I even have some I want to explore further and others I want to go large with.

This month has been stressful with the marriage of my daughter,

5 family birthdays, and the final days and death of my sister in law, Ann.

But painting every day actually kept me focused and on track to not waste my time.

Thank you all so much for following me on this journey, for commenting about my art and encouraging me to keep going.  Every single comment lifts me and makes me want to keep working.      

Day 26 Snow Day

Day 26 Snow Day

I've done pretty good so far not painting snow.

 But,

yesterday when I went to my studio to paint, 

I looked out the window and there was just a beautiful scene.

I can say beautiful, 

because I didn't have children home from school for the fifth day in a row

for a "Snow Day".

We have been inundated with snow, blowing snow, ice storms and extremely cold temps.

   Snow Day

7" x 5" acrylic on a panel

$50 + $6 shipping