Art me in the Garden- My Garden Seems to think it's June!

As promised here are pictures of my garden.  Since there are SO many, I'll just write captions- as I don't want folks to run in "horror" when they see my garden posts.  I also included a picture of my new WIP since it's from my garden as well, tho' from last year :)

This is probably my favorite rose; "Jude the Obscure"  here it looks bright yellow but it's really more of a kind of Sunset yellow.....

" Jude the Obscure" up close.......

 My foxgloves in all their glory

 This rose is "Cinco de Mayo" it's really cool- it starts as a deep watermelon-y red and fades to vairous shades of lavender, maybe *it's* my favorite......

 

 front entrance to the garden with nasturtium, Chinese foxglove, coral bells, foxglove, delphinium and more....

 Entrance to the back garden.....

 My arbor might be my favorite part of the garden right now......

 Iris, "Merlot" 

And finally, my new WIP from my "Perle d'Or" the rose on my mailbox.  Sorry it's so dark, Picasa wouldn't let me load these, so I had to add them un-edited ;)  I'll be adding color tomorrow and working on it to have something for Paint Party Friday.

Have a great day!

Stephanie

It's my birthday and I'll cry if I want to.....no, seriously, It was the BEST birthday ever!

This has been the most amazing birthday!  We went to the Renaissance Festival- something I look forward to all year long!  And best of all, our friends Kelly and Jim moved here this Winter and we were able to introduce it to them!  Kelly is a professional photographer and I was lucky enough to reap the benefits of her talent- one more birthday treat- she took all these wonderful pictures!

Garrett and Caroline

Me and the fam...

.

Oh I WANTED this little critter- but he was $75.00, so I just posed with him ;)

look aren't they GREAT!

playing around with mud

my beautiful daughter Caroline

CC again.....

moi, pigging out ...it WAS my birthday:)

one of the many characters at the Ren Fest- I LOVE the people watching opportunities!

me and Miss Kelly

I always get a thrill out of the jousting

the King and I (he offered to "knight" me in the corner;))

and we encountered a beautiful faerie child along the way....

my beautiful Emmie and her friend Anna....

the Dragon Lady- she MADE this dragon as part of her costume!

What a GREAT day- I had SO much FUN!

Toodles,

Stephanie

It's Auction Time!

It's time for Inspiration Avenue's auction for Angel Faces!

I've chosen to offer my

"Angel in the Garden"

for this wonderfully worthy cause!

she is painted on a 5" x 7" gallery wrapped canvas with the details and colors extending to the edges making her ready to hang on the wall.  

while painting her, I tried to fill the canvas with the magic of a garden evening- I LOVE her, I hope you will too!

Be sure to stop by Inspiration Avenue to see what else is up for bidding!  Not only is this a wonderful opportunity to obtain some beautiful art for your own  personal collection, it's also for such a great cause- our beloved Angel Faces and ALL our proceeds will go to them!  I'm so excited about this!

All items will be posted there by Sunday, May 1.

Here are the fine print details, 

although I won't make you read fine print :)

Bidding will take place in the comments section

of each posted item (bid only on Inspiration Avenue,

not on the artists' individual blogs).

When you bid, remember to leave your email address

so we can contact you if you are the winner.

Many items will have a starting bid suggested;

please bid in 1 US Dollar increments (no pennies please)

Shipping is paid by the artists, so a winning bid

delivers your item right to your door!

Bidding will end at noon on Saturday, May 7, 2011.

All proceeds will go to Angel Faces ~

read about their wonderful work HERE.

Thanks so much for looking!

Stephanie

Paint Party Friday- April 29.

I know a lot of you have already heard me talking about the Sisterhood of the Traveling Sketchbooks, and that is what I worked on this week.  Because......this is IT!  They're starting their travels TODAY!
SO, I had a lot of bits and bobs to finish and do touch ups on....
Like; my sign in page- here it is finished:

And a spread dividing the sign in from the "personal info" page:

The personal page was supposed to be reflective of our favorite color represent a sense of who we are:

  I've been hearing a lot about projects people are doing with 21 Secrets (I'm REALLY tempted to sign up....:)) anyway, one technique that really resounded with me was to cover your journal page with writing before you add anything else.  Being the kind of person who usually chooses the hardest way to do things, I decided to do my writing with white souffle gel pens.  It was a little like writing with invisible ink- but the results were SO cool when I did my watercolor wash over the writing- like a watercolor resist! With my words, I was basically rambling on in a rather ADHD sort of fashion about color and colors I like.....
I painted over this with a rambling of turquoise, lime, blue and purple and then once that was dry, I went over it with blue-black; using liquid watercolors.

 I trimmed out a print of my (now infamous) self portrait and played off of a quote from my favorite movie; Ever After"- something Danielle said about choosing a favorite book; "I'd sooner choose a favorite star in the heavens!"  since I love this movie AND books I thought it was kind of neat to include a bit of it in my spread.

random-naming of colors

 Then on the back of the personal spread, I wrote a journal entry basically saying the same thing I've said here, so I didn't take a picture of it.  By the time most of you read this, my little "baby" will have started her journey- first stop is the UK!
The other thing I worked on this week was finishing my angel for the Angel Faces auction.  I'm really happy with how it turned out!  I'll be posting more about the auction today or tomorrow and it starts Sunday for anyone whose interested in obtaining some artwork for an amazing cause!.

Be sure to go see what everyone else was up to this week at Paint Party Friday-  I know I'll be spending the day visiting!
Happy PPF- I can't believe, I'm early for once!
Stephanie

Week 3 of Art Class

Wow, I can't believe the first 6 week session of art class is halfway over!  We started class by doing final touch up to the orchid paintings and removing the taped borders- I'm always amazed at how professional something as simple as tape makes children's art look!  Each child then posed with their finished masterpiece:

 Then it was time to get started on our new project.  I love Cooper Edens; he does the coolest little books with almost surreal illustrations and always adds the neatest little sayings.  Anyway, my Mom gave me one of his books a couple years ago and one of the spreads was "If you're afraid of the dark, add one more star to the night"  I just LOVE that!  And so, I turned it into a project starting with filling the inside square with oil pastel stars (any color they wanted because these are THEIR stars, and why should they just be white?) and then going around the entire border with the quote- I love words mixed with art!  Next week, they'll be painting a night-time sky over the words and stars and doing a self portrait of themselves holding a star- we'll also be creating ladders to "stand on" to reach the sky ;)

We took a little wiggle break to dance to "Who Let the Dogs Out?"...........

I can't WAIT to see these with paint and portraits!
See you next week!
Stephanie

Birthday Fun

Some of you might have noticed that I kind of like flowers.....well OK, I LOVE them!  Anyway, each year in the week leading up to my birthday my Dad takes me plant shopping.  Last year we got 6 blueberry bushes at the whole sale place (we now have our first crop of the little beauties ripening on the vine er branch ;))
Yesterday, we went to Goodness Grows and wonderful garden whole sale (gotta love those tax ID#'s they get you the best deals!) nursery and I went nuts.  Not only does this place have a the regular plants, they also have a lot of unusual varieties that you just can't find any where else, and for such a good price!  We got Old Fashioned Nicotiana (flowering tobacco) an annual that reseeds prolifically - I love it when garden gives back :)  also some Queen Anne's Lace which I LOVE, a pink Clematis with tulip-like blooms a Baptista and Russian Sage.  Except for my tobacco plant and the clematis most of my plants were fairly normal things that I've been wanting to add to my garden.......

I MUST remember this grouping when I plant my delphinium and foxgloves this fall.....

The entire place is set up like the most beautiful garden

Dad and my Nicotiana

View from the wrap around porch at check out

 

Ready for checkout- note: not ALL of these were mine- my Dad got some too :)

I LOVE this combination...

Me and my Dad

After buying flowers, we went for a beautiful lunch in Athens home of the Georgia Bulldogs and then got stuck in traffic for two hours.....all in all, what a GREAT day!

TTFN,

Stephanie