February | 2017 | The Studio

Archive for February, 2017

President Bush Paints Veterans

Posted in Books, Serendipity, tagged George Bush, veterans, Winston Churchill, Wounded Warriors on February 28, 2017| Leave a Comment »

bush-portraits_final George W. Bush didn’t start painting until after he left the White House when he read Winston Churchill’s Painting as a Pastime. (Here’s a blog post we wrote about that book a few years ago.) He found that he loved painting and jumped in with both feet the way many of us do once we discover painting. He has spent the last year painting portraits of veterans in an attempt to bring attention to wounded veterans and profits from this book will be donated to the Military Service Initiative at the George W. Bush Presidential Center. Great idea! His book is released today. Read and see more about it here.

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Hollyhocks

Posted in Flowers, Paint Party, tagged Hollyhocks on February 27, 2017| Leave a Comment »

We painted beautiful Hollyhocks yesterday with a fun bunch of ladies. Great work everyone!

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VIA Students Paint

Posted in Art Class, Landscape, tagged Landscape, VIA, Virginia International Academy on February 26, 2017| 1 Comment »

Over the past few weeks I have been working with students from the Virginia International Academy. VIA is full immersion boarding school for ESL high school students preparing them to enter mainstream academic programs. (You can read more about it here). These students want to go on to study some form of art eventually so they come to The Studio for lessons for 10 weeks while attending VIA. They did a fabulous job on our painting of this craggy old tree.

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Fabulous Winter Scenes

Posted in Landscape, Paint Party, tagged cardinal, winter, Winter Landscape on February 25, 2017| Leave a Comment »

We had a wonderful crowd of ladies who painted these fabulous winter scenes at The Studio last night. Great work everyone! And many thanks for allowing me the intermission during the party to walk down the street for the Pawcasso reception. I appreciate your understanding. 🙂

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Pawcasso

Posted in Animals, Dogs, Private Lesson, Serendipity, Small Town Life, tagged Dogs painting, Pawcasso, Pet Paintings, sponsor on February 24, 2017| Leave a Comment »

The Studio is sponsoring a really fun event for the Humane Society of Warren County – PAWCASSO. When Lavenda Denney approached me last year about her idea for this project she knew she had me at art and rescue pets. She wanted to have the available animals at the shelter “paint” works of art to sell at a show at the arts council. I loved the idea and agreed to sponsor it right away but also suggested we take it a little further by offering private lessons for people who already have pets. So The Studio provided 10 sessions to people who would pre-purchase a large (18″ x 24″) painting with their pets. The pets had a private lesson with me and we created the large work of art. And it’s no surprise that those sold out. We have had so much fun with this project. And tonight is the reception from 6-9 pm at The Blue Ridge Arts Council at 405 E Main St. You don’t want to miss it! You have to see this art and these wonderful small works are for sale. Please come. Here are some of the painters at their session. LOL!

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Sunrise Service

Posted in daily painter, Holidays, Landscape, tagged Cross, Easter, Sunrise on February 23, 2017| Leave a Comment »

Prepared this painting as a sample for an upcoming Easter Paint Party. What do you think?

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Forsythia

Posted in Art Class, daily painter, Flowers, tagged Forsythia on February 22, 2017| Leave a Comment »

On one of our morning walks last week, Jed and Lincoln and I saw forsythia beginning to bloom….already! Because of it we painted Forsythia in the kids classes last week and they did great work. Here are the samples I created for them to see for their paintings.

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Crocheting First Ladies

Posted in Crochet, Little Known Facts, tagged Crochet, Ida McKinley, slippers on February 21, 2017| Leave a Comment »

Yesterday the Interweave blog had an interesting post for President’s Day all about First Ladies who crocheted. I was so interested to read about Ida Saxton McKinley who crocheted over 4000 slippers while her husband was in office despite her ill health. The photos today are from a wonderful article on Betsy Butler’s blog. (See it here.) This is from Interweave:

“Ida Saxton McKinley (1847-1907), the wife of President William McKinley (1843-1901), was limited by precarious health. Suffering from severe headaches, mild epileptic seizures, fainting spells, and periods of depression, she often preferred to remain in her private quarters. But despite her physical limitations, she was an avid crocheter said to have crocheted some 4,000 pairs of bedroom slippers during her lifetime . . . Mrs. McKinley either gave these slippers away to friends, veterans, and orphans or she sold them at auction to raise money for the charities that she supported.”

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More Pet Portraits…

Posted in Dogs, Farm Animals, Paint Party, Pet Portaits, tagged pets on February 20, 2017| Leave a Comment »

pets-feb-19 I had a really fun Paint Party yesterday with a wonderful group of ladies that come out from Northern Virginia to paint every few months. They are all delightful and we have lots of laughs as we paint beautiful pets. Great work ladies. Can’t wait till April.