2011 Pearls art show

This is me last night at the 2011 Pearls Before Swine Art Show here in Elgin with my painting "Just Happened." I created this one with an intuitive underpainting first, adding an image of columbines after it had dried, by painting in and around the shapes. "Summer Breeze," above, is one of my intuitive paintings which I let evolve spontaneously without preplanning a subject. Both paintings were fun to create. Summer Breeze received a People's Choice award during the reception!

There was a big festive crowd and lots of beautiful art, including youth art, in an old historic building on Main Street. And a silent auction with great participation from area businesses, with proceeds sponsoring a youth art scholarship. I am impressed with the vibrancy and support of the community and the leadership of the Elgin Art Association in making this event a success. Come if you can to the art show, which is up through Saturday, October 22 for the Elgin Hogeye Festival http://www.elgintx.com/hogeye.asp. For those of you who don't live in Texas, thanks for enjoying our fun through my blog!

"Watercolor, Free and Easy"

My brother asked me to lead an art activity at a surprise birthday party for a very special lady, his girlfriend, Sandy. She is not only his special lady, but one of my biggest art enthusiasts. How could I say no? After a trial run with a smaller group of friends, then an inspired day of analyzing my own painting process and simplifying and outlining the steps involved, I came up with an easy step-by-step process. With the key steps painted and described on an illustration board, I led the group through creating their own painting of vases with light shining through. The first step involved making a wet-on-wet underpainting. Then when the underpainting was dry, the image of vases was added by transferring a tracing onto the underpainting using graphite paper. And finally, the space around the vases was painted a darker color, causing the lighter colors to appear to shine through the vases. Voila! We had quite a few masterpieces and lots of laughter and fun, not to mention, wine, food, and birthday festivities interspersed in between!