Montreal

This ferris wheel at LaRonde Montreal, Quebec was HUGE!

I think Alex's pants were brown afterwards. My stomach did flip flops just watching Delaney lean forward and look down.

Cute penguins I photographed at the Biosphere.

These weather worn, old, paint flaking murals in Old Montreal were great abstract compositions when cropped. Found art.

Skaneatles Lake

I'm missing putting my feet in the chilly water of Skaneatles Lake. If you have the guts to jump in, it feels sooo good.

Savannah had the guts.

I swam a couple times, the water is crystal clear.

I love the sound of water lapping over the shore. That sound used to lull me to sleep many nights of my childhood spent on the boat.

More Art at ACRA

Last night I got frustrated with the blog software so I’m using something different now, let’s see how I do. Another project the kids love is Junk Art. I’m not sure when it started but it’s one of those projects that God help the person who ever tried to not include it on the calendar. I cover 2 large tables with all kinds of junk and then stand back. Here’s some of their work.Sidney and Bridget with their creation “Joe”.  Kali’s Junk Art, I wish I would have taken the time to get a better picture. There was much more that I didn’t photograph, I was usually too tired at the end of the day.

The last week we did needlepoint on plastic canvas, jute bracelets, beaded lizards and sun prints.  I was too busy to get any photos. Here’s some shots of the kids and the final display of art for the open house. Autumn and Molly working on papier mache. Serena and her God’s Eye.Phoenix, Delaney and Gryphon.Alex working on her cow.  Spin Art display.Handkerchief display. 

      Project Runway with Betty O’Regan. The kids were sent home with a box and a shopping bag full of their art on the last day.

More Art at ACRA

The art supplies are packed away until next year and most of the work returned to it's owner. I've had a few days to rest and reflect. Let's see if I can back up and show everything we did the last three weeks. First I promised a picture of the little girl who did the most work on her sewing kit, here's April, she's 6 years old and a bundle of energy. Love her! The kids love papier mache. I can't really explain it other than when else do you get to make whatever you want and make a huge mess while you're doing it? Here are some of the finished projects. That's a pie, a mouse, a crab and a cow. There were other animals, an ice cream cone and a couple cool rocket ships. These are called God's Eyes, a craft made with 2 sticks and yarn. I do these every year because the art director before me did them every year for 13 years and who knows how many years someone did them before her. It just wouldn't be ACRA without doing God's Eyes. Next we made some awesome stationery with printed leaves. I was really into this and made a bunch to use as Thank You notes. Oh yeah the kids liked it too. I figured out a way to make a 2 color print by laying the inked leaves face up on a large stamp pad and then laying the paper over that and pressing.
Ruth Bean and Lisa Riblett came in to do Weed Creatures. This is very popular year after year, here's just a small sampling of their work.

Arden Community Recreation Association

I'm working as the art director at the ACRA camp in Arden, with Jeanne Orr as my wonderful assistant. It's fun some days and down right grueling others. The rewards are obvious when the kids repeatedly say "This is so fun!" and the parents comment that their kids can't wait to get there in the morning to go to the art room. Here are some of the projects we have done so far. Spin art, do you remember this from when you were a kid? My twist is using colored cards. They don't seem to tire of this because of the surprise of seeing what it looks like when it stops spinning.

Watercolor with India Ink. The ink was done first, then wax candle drawings, then watercolor. The ink and the wax give the work dimension and the kids like playing with the different techniques.

Here are some felt sewing kits they made. The idea is to stock the book with sewing supplies and also use the pages to practice embroidery stitches. One little girl has put a lot of work into hers since this photo so I'll have to post an update.

Ken Mabrey, an amazing artist in the neighborhood came in as a visiting artist in the art room. He brought some of his original stencils and the kids stencilled on handkerchiefs with fabric paint dabbers . 38 handkerchiefs were stencilled that day! Some of them were made into vests the following day, I'll have to photograph someone wearing one, they were super cute with the stencilled handkerchief as the back. Painted Paper Collage is a 2 day project. First the kids paint with acrylic paint papers that will be used to collage with the following day. The painting day draws more of a crowd than the collage day. For painting I put out all kind of tools to paint with and make marks with like combs, sponges and large brushes. Here's some of their papers.

Here's some of their collages made from their painted papers.
Here the kids made their own stamps and printed with them.

This was just the projects for the first two weeks. Two other visiting artists volunteered their time to work with the kids and I apologize I don't have photos at the moment. I'm usually too involved to pick up a camera while I'm working.

Creativity Workshop

I did it! I taught my first Creativity Workshop. Thank you Laura, Sam, Linda and Keri, my brave participants that trusted me to take them on a journey. We wrote, shared, laughed, danced, painted, wrote some more, made beautiful collages with our hand painted papers, and imagined our perfect creative spaces. Wow, and all in 6 hours. I brought my camera and totally forgot to take pictures. Because of our small number I was the 5th participant and I really enjoyed creating alongside my friends. These are some of our painted papers, my collage and some of their feedback.

Sam wrote:

"I really enjoyed it. One part that was interesting was to be able to write freely about something and then go right into making something that tied the two together.Working on pieces together then creating some pieces on your own was also very freeing and I got a lot of inspiration from that exercise.I felt very inspired to just want to paint, when I left. I wanted to explore things that I played with in the workshop and the pieces that I'm currently working on. It was very positive energy."

Linda wrote:

"I definitely enjoyed the day....despite my crying! It was very intimate and the group worked together well in our joint projects. I loved the whole thing....perhaps just a couple more hours of time would be nice so that we would have more time as a group to get to know one another."

Laura wrote: "I enjoyed it very much. To me, it was an amazing success. I am so restrained when trying to create. Like when you mentioned in the a.m. that we'd be using our papers to collage with, I couldn't imagine at all how I would design a collage. In fact, I was a bit concerned. The writing exercise was so helpful to me; it gave me ideas to collage about. It was so fun to have a topic or message to play with in my collage versus wondering, what it ever could say, and the most inhibiting, how it should look? "

Thanks guys for your thoughtful feedback. I'm planning on leading another workshop probably in the Fall. On Monday I start my job as the art director at ACRA, in Arden, DE. It's the hardest job you'll ever love, if it doesn't kill you.

New Work, Open Studio

I've been working on 3 new 46 x 48 inch oil paintings. This time I toned the canvases with acrylic before I started pouring oil washes which really jump started the work. Starting with a colored ground is an entirely different process. The goal was to break away from the phthalo blue based work, so I painted one canvas a golden yellow ochre color, one dark green and one ended up cerelean blue so I painted over it with orange letting some blue show through. So 2 of them have blue in them and then the third is the golden red one which I don't evn know if it fits in with the others. I'll let the work speak for it's self.

If you're in the area please stop by I'll have my studio open from 5-8:30 pm at the Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts in Wilmington, DE on Friday June 5th, check the website for directions http://www.thedcca.org/ There will be gallery openings, music and food. Somehow I'm going to arrange my studio so most of my new work will be visible including about 12 new encaustic paintings.