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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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The Four Agreements

Posted in Books, tagged Don Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements on January 20, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Several years ago I wrote about a little book that is one of my favorites. It still is. And yesterday while speaking with some friends it came to me that I needed to review it since I haven’t read it in a year or so. The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz is a small, simple book with a really big message.

This amazing little book if taken to heart will change you forever. You can read my first post about it here.

As an artist Agreement #2 is important. If you take personally everything anyone says about your work will destroy you. Their opinion about your work is NOT about you but all about them. I have to keep that in mind – all the time!

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Birthday Paint Party!

Posted in Books, Paint Parties, tagged acrylic, Blue Ridge Arts Council, books painting, impressionism on March 30, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Katrinka’s Birthday Paint Party

We had a fabulous time yesterday at Katrinka’s Birthday Paint Party. You all did a great job on your paintings. I love it when the attendees come in and haven’t painted before and are a little nervous about what they are going to do but then they leave with a terrific painting.

You can learn more about upcoming Paint Parties open to everyone here. Or book a private party for you and your friends.

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Another Book Painting Completed

Posted in Books, tagged acrylic, book, daily painting, impressionism, Virginia Artist on March 13, 2014| Leave a Comment »

A few weeks ago I did this painting as a demonstration for a kid’s art class (see that here) but I finally went back to it yesterday to finish it up. It will be at Delilah’s if you want to see it up close. 🙂

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Jacob, Ethan and Logan with Paintings

Posted in Art Class, Books, tagged acrylic, Art Class, Blue Ridge Arts Council, book painting, Enterprise painting, impressionism, kite painting, Landscape on March 7, 2014| 2 Comments »

Ethan’s Kite

Jacob’s Book

Logan’s Enterprise

Three of my students finished their paintings this past week. And boy did they do a great job. Ethan made this terrific kite painting and Jacob did this wonderful open book painting in the Kids Class. Kids ages 7-12 paint each Thursday from 4:15-5:15. And we would love to have new painters join us.

Logan, who started in the Kids Class several years ago and now has moved to the adult class, completed this wonderful “Enterprise” painting. Great job Logan with nice vision. You are doing super in the Adult Class!

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Book Demo Finished

Posted in Books, tagged acrylic, Art Class, Books, daily painter, impressionism, Virginia Artist on February 24, 2014| Leave a Comment »

I finally got back to the demonstration painting from the 1st Saturday Paint Party and finished it up. I often start demo paintings while teaching and don’t get back to them to finish because I get busy helping students complete theirs. I like this one and wanted to wrap it up.

The next 1st Saturday Paint Party is this Saturday, March 1 at 4 pm. There are a few spaces left to paint a landscape this time so register today.

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More with Books

Posted in Art Class, Books, tagged acrylic, Art Class, art lessons, book painting, impressionism, open book painting, Virginia Artist on February 21, 2014| Leave a Comment »

As I continue to work on the book series (I haven’t given up…just been misdirected for a week or so) we decided to paint a book with my young student yesterday. Here is Ethan with a wonderful painting of an open book and glasses. We painted side by side so you see his version on the left, mine on the right and the reference photo above my painting.

We decided a plain background was too dull so we put “wallpaper” on the wall behind our tables. Great job Ethan!

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Book Still Life

Posted in Books, tagged acrylic, Books, Books still life, daily painter, impressionism, Virginia Artist on February 13, 2014| Leave a Comment »

I haven’t forgotten about the book still life I showed the sketch of a few days ago. I finally had some time to lay in some color yesterday.

Here you can see the reference photo at the top, the painting on the easel and the palette at the bottom of the photo. There is still quite a bit to do to it but it’s shaping up nicely.

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Things You Find…

Posted in Books, Recipes, tagged Art Books, Books, Carnation Company, Fun to Cook Book on July 21, 2013| 2 Comments »

The things you find when you clean up your studio. Yesterday I spent all day cleaning up, straightening up, moving around, etc. Now I’m exhausted! The big thing I wanted to accomplish was to get all my art books in one location. I did it but it took all day and one thing led to another so I ended up rearranging three rooms!!!

While moving books from one room to another I found this old cookbook. It is my very first. I remember Mama ordering it for me. We had to save three labels from Carnation products and mail them with a quarter. (That is when you could actually mail a quarter in the mail.) And then I waited for it to arrive. How exciting it was! I think I was about 7 or 8 years old.

So glad that I found it!

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Kleon’s “Steal Like an Artist”

Posted in Books, tagged Austin Kleon, Steal Like an Artist on February 5, 2013| Leave a Comment »

I just read Austin Kleon’s book, “Steal Like An Artist – 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative”. It was GREAT! I encourage everyone to read it. It’s a fast read with lots of tidbits to encourage creativity like my favorite on page 111, “Validation is for Parking”!

As Mr. Kleon’s states on his website, www.austinkleon.com, in describing the book:

“When I was asked to talk to students at a community college in upstate New York, I sat down and wrote a talk based on a list of 10 things I wished I’d heard when I was starting out:

Steal like an artist.
Don’t wait until you know who you are to get started.
Write the book you want to read.
Use your hands.
Side projects and hobbies are important.
The secret: do good work and share it with people.
Geography is no longer our master.
Be nice. (The world is a small town.)
Be boring. (It’s the only way to get work done.)
Creativity is subtraction.

The text and slides from the talk “rocked the creative world” and went viral—since it’s been online, the original blog post has reached millions of readers. I expanded the post into a book-length work stuffed full of brand-new writing and illustrations, published by Workman Publishing in February 2012.”

It’s worth every penny of the $10.95 cover price. Pick up a copy and take a look for yourself. I highly recommend it.

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