Art me in the Garden; or Rather, the Atlanta Botanical Garden.....

 Last week, my friend Nancy and I went to the Atlanta Botanical Gardens- really we went just to see the gardens with the first touches of Autumn color.  We were pleasantly surprised to find a wonderful exhibit of scarecrows placed throughout the gardens.  This one was at the door, and yes, that's me in the reflection....

Gotta love Black Jack Sparrow or should that be Black Jack SpareCROW?  Sorry, couldn't resist ;)

 

The rose garden is is an incredible formal garden.....

 

The fountain at the center of the the Parterre Rose garden- flaunting a Chihuly sculpture, so incredible!

 This was my favorite of the scarecrows, I love how her dress was made with magnolia leaves and leftover hydrangea blooms

I find it so amazing that you can catch glimpses of the Atlanta skyline throughout the garden....

 These little scare monsters were SO much fun- I LOVE the colors!

 Asters, so very purply-bluish-purple......I think I NEED some

 Lucky her dress is so pretty, not sure about the face...

This guy was really neat also, I wish he had a yellow brick road alongside him...

That's about all for now, I need to get going on my painting for Inspiration Avenue's weekly challenge, else I won't have anything to share there OR at Paint Party Friday....see y'all later!
Stephanie

Weekly Challenge at Inspiration Avenue- My Hometown- Decatur, Georgia

I had so much fun with this week's challenge at Inspiration Avenue!  The theme was "My Hometown" and I wanted my focus to emphasize how lucky I am to live in a small town with charm and atmosphere with all the added benefits of being five miles from the city of Atlanta.  I'm a third generation Decaturite- my Dad and I went to the same elementary and high schools and each of my three children are currently attending the schools that we went to as well.  I LOVE the continuity of that- it's just so poetic to me.  Anyway, for my entry I wanted to do a mixed media piece (I REALLY wanted to include an art doll, but it just didn't happen this time:)) using a recycled canvas.  I cut the middle piece out to create a frame which I covered with various papers to give it texture. 

For the inside, I used two pictures of the Atlanta skyline that changed with flters and tore to make a layered background for my silhouette, 

For the inside of the silhouette I created a digital image using an antique map of Decatur overlayed with an image of my garden.  Since I couldn't find a quote that expressed what I wanted to say, I made my own up. Can you tell how much FUN I had with this one? 

Happy Sunday, I'm off to check out the other entries at IA

Cheers,

Stephanie