Paint Party Friday- Week 29

For Paint Party Friday this week I finished my journal cover.  All I have left to do is varnish it and then I can drill the holes and assemble my book!
I'm so excited about how this came out!

Be sure to stop by Paint Party Friday to see whart everyone else has been up to- last week we had almost 80 players!  That's where I'll be this weekend!
Happy PPF!
Stephanie

The first of my little student's Halloween projects.......

I might have mentioned somewhere along the way how much I love Halloween.....Spring may be my favorite season, but all hallow's eve is my favorite holiday!  So, although I'm always thrilled that I'm teaching again, it's even more special to me right now 'cause I get to share the spooky fun with my little students!
We got a lot done this Thursday with the kid's practicing drawing favorite candies and then re-drawing them onto their good water color papers with the words of one of my favorite Halloween poems to go with....

"Trick or Treat,

Smell my Feet

Give me something 

GOOD to eat!"

yes, I know, an oldie but definitely a goodie ;)

Candy Corn and Gummies...mmmmm

Sloppy business this creating art!

 But oh so worth it!

So magical- white lettering with dark paint.....

Once they were done with their paintings, we had just enough time to do practice drawings of Jack o' Lanterns for our Pumpkin Totem Poles.... they'll consist of a stack of 4 pumpkins topped with assorted spooks and whatnot.....do check in next week to see!

Have a great weekend,

Stephanie

P.S. I'll be back in a bit with my PPF post- see, I'm early (for me at least ;)) this week!

Just Hangin' Around...

Every once in a while, I happen to have my camera in hand at exactly the right moment to catch a great shot.....seems the theme around here is hanging out 'cause just a minute ago, I caught this little guy looking at me through the window....

I LOVE the expression on his face- so merry! And then, I caught Mojo at her new favorite hobby, climbing and hanging on the screen (no worries there, we're replacing it soon...;))

Hope these brought a smile to your face- they did to mine :)

Have a great day!
Stephanie

Finished the first session of Fall art classes.....almost time to move on to Halloween!

To wrap up this session of art classes, we finished our studies on leaf prints and then moved on to Autumn poetry paintings.......there are so many ways to make prints....we combined wet paint on dry paper, dry paint on wet paper and wet paint on dry paper and finished these by using the leaves a s a stencil to paint over and around....I LOVE the way these came out!

 painting the back of the leaves with thick tube water color paint- 

thank goodness for drop cloth table covers :D

Then finishing it off with a nice background color!

Here they are completed:

And here are the tops of their Autumn poetry paintings- the focus here was on the colors of Fall.....

For the bottom of their leaf poem paintings, they chose their favorite print techniques for the big finish!

 Two students chose water color resist with oil pastel leaf transfers- 

they colored the back of the leaf, then RUBBED it onto the paper.....

then painted over with liquid water colors

 

 And the last student chose to do more  of a drawing technique- first the outline of the leaf with veins drawn in and then paint- sorry it doesn't show up very well!

So that wraps up our Fall session of classes- next, we'll be doing Halloween; one of my favorites!!!
Stephanie

Paint Party Friday- Week 28

Wow, I don't think I've ever been so late to Paint Party Friday before- but I did make it!  My entry this week was inspired by several people.  

1. When I was doing my blog rounds this week, I came across a gratitude journal by Terri of Pringle Hill Studio and fell in love with the idea of making my own.

2. A couple weeks ago, Amy shared the idea of painted on recycled book covers- I've been dying to try it!

3. Hettienne, our newest team member of Inspiration Avenue set our theme this week to be "Keys" and I knew I wanted to incorporate it into my journal.....

Finally, I've been wanting to find a base design for creating books that I could use to make garden journals, recipe files; really anything I can think of!  Here's the link that I'm going to use to finish this with: Make a Book

Anyway, I was so excited that this combined all these sources of inspiration- AND I'll finally have something pretty for sketching and journaling!  I'm going to fill it with a combination of card stock, canvas paper and watercolor papers so I can fill it with a variety of things....SO excited about this!

 Here's what it looks like now- I haven't decided how I want to finish the square, maybe one of my joie de vivre figures or a quote, definitely something simple...I don't know- any ideas?

And here's my take on keys for the IA theme of the week.  I'll probably do a little more tweaking but this part is mostly done- I strongly encourage you all to hop over to Inspiration Avenue tomorrow afternoon to see what everyone has done for "keys"- I love how different each entry is!
Be sure to stop by Paint Party Friday to see what everyone else has been up to!
Have a great weekend!
Stephanie

Inspiration Avenue Weekly Challenge_ "Autumn's Splendor"

I finished my September page for Brandy's journal just in time to use for this week's challenge at Inspiration Avenue.  The theme was "Autumn's Splendor".   I ended up using a quote by e. e. cummings instead of Robert Frost and added a few more details into the leaves and mask.

Be sure to stop by Inspiration Avenue on Sunday to see what everyone else submitted- there's always a gorgeous variety of art to see!
Cheers,
Stephanie

Paint Party Friday- Week 27

I got Brandy's beautiful sketchbook this week; just in time to start something for Paint Party Friday!  I was so inspired by my friend Jaime's leaf prints a couple weeks ago, I knew I wanted to do something similar for my background so yesterday, I had a great time painting and printing!  Then I sketched in a mask (not sure why I wanted to do a mask, but the muse insisted, and who am I to ignore her?)  So, this is what I have so far...To finish it; I'm going to add a little more veining and Robert Frost's poem "Nothing Gold can stay..."

At first I was worried that it would be too "Halloweeny" but I decided to paint it anyway and see where it from there- I knew if I had to, I could save it for my October pages, but I'm really happy with it as a September piece.  What do you think?  Should I keep it for September or save it for October?
Be sure to stop by Paint Party Friday- that's where I'll be all weekend, enjoying a gorgeous variety of artists and their art!
Stephanie

Finally- I'm finished with my sunflower!

So I finally finished my sunflower painting, really it's pretty much the same as on Friday, I just did touch ups here and there.....So, here it is now;

 I also actually managed to list it in Etsy; if you want to see more pictures of it, click here.  And here are pictures of it's progression for those of who may not have seen where I started with this......

from two weeks ago before I added the band of burgundy

original one day painting- I just don't think one day pieces are me!

 I also got this one listed...things have been so slow in Etsy lately, I've been forgetting to list new paintings!

Have a great day all, I'm off to start working on something for Paint Party Friday!
Stephanie

Checking in with an Update on what we've been doing in Art Class.....

When I last wrote about my classes, we were working on the Pseudo stained glass pets and the Name pattern paintings.  Both projects turned out beautifully!
Here are  the "Sorta Stained Glass Pets"

 And "Name those Patterns"

I was SO excited when we began the month of September, because that meant I could start my Autumn projects.......which means Halloween isn't far behind, and that's my FAVORITE!

We're going to do three different kinds of leaf prints, and I use the term "print" very loosely because the first one we did was a tracing rather than a print!   We gathered a good selection of leaves and then I demonstrated how to trace and then erase the overlapping lines to give the illusion of multi layers of leaves....

 Then we talked about "Autumn colors" and they outlined their leaves with oil pastels......

 Then painted their papers.....

And while the paint was wet, they used water color pencils to write in various words that made them think of Autumn.  They also began their next big project which features an illuminated poem about Autumn with the bottom masked off for leaf prints combining all three techniques we'll be doing. 

For our final 2 leaf print pieces, we'll do a "wet on wet" print and a twist on leaf rubbings with water color resist- LOT'S of work left to be done- it's for our last class and we'll really have to put a rush on it to get everything done!
And if you've stayed with me this far into this extremely LONG post, thanks!
Have a great day,
Stephanie

Paint Party Friday- Week 26

I'm late, I'm LATE for A very important date.....or rather, I'm late for this week's Paint Party Friday!  Better late than never, though- this is something I look forward to ALL week, so I'm just glad to be here! With Monday being a holiday and then spending the rest of the week trying to catch up on housework, taking care of sick children ad an ailing husband, I feel quite lucky to be here at all!
I only had a tiny window to paint, so I spent it trying to finish my sunflower...and I did, almost....it's pretty much done in my opinion except for a bit of tweaking here and there.  And I really glad I kept pushing and changing; because I feel like I'm getting closer and closer to my own style.
So here it is:

It's funny to me that once I get my art up on the monitor, I immediately see areas I want to touch up...here, the first thing that jumped out at me was the leaves need more contrast between that band of magenta and the cobalt background...other than that, and a few touch ups on the flower; I'm ready to call it "done"
Try to take a few minutes to visit the other folks at Paint Party Friday, it's always wonderful to see such a beautiful variety of art!
Cheers,
Stephanie

Art me in the Garden...End Days of Summer- Early days of Fall

I finally had a chance to take pictures of the garden- it's either been raining or overcast or I was just too busy!  And to be truthful, at this time of year, there's not a whole lot going on- the garden is at one of those awkward "in-between" phases where there's still a few Summer flowers going and the Autumn beauties have buds but no blooms.....but I did get a few snaps to share.

this is an overview of the garden from our back door

this is the first year my twice blooming iris has done it's second bloom- I'm SUPER excited about this!

Waste not, want not- any over sized fallen branches usually become edging for my borders- LOVE the crookedy-crook-ness of this branch!

 detail of my shade garden- the hydrangeas are just starting to don their Autumnal burgundies and toad lilies are soon to bloom

I've planted a living wall at the entrance to the veggie garden with swamp sunflowers, in just a few weeks they will be glorious!

 Nasturtium and Echinacea- gifts that keep giving.....

 these roses will keep on blooming until the first freeze

side border of the front garden- sedums and swamp sunflowers take center stage

So, there you have it- an update to my garden.  Funny how blogging about it makes me love it even more!

Cheers,

Stephanie