Art Party!

There was an Art Party today and I didn't have to dress up!

 

It was big fun to get together with a great group of women, paint brushes, paper and glue!
I've been super busy at the day job but now with summer here, I'm ready to have a go with my personal art side.
Having time to work on my growing collection of painted faces and actually putting them to work was a fun experience for me to watch unfold today.  They were accepted with surprise and big smiles!  Thanks for the support you guys.  Looking forward to sharing more with you! 

Silence

Is silence really golden?

 

I haven't worked in my journal since Nov. 16 of last year.  There was a gap in my blog beginning around that same time.  I didn't know what to say.  Things were happening all around me.  There were definitely things to share but I couldn't get motivated to write about them.  I was mourning in silence.

I lost a friend.  Someone who I'd never talk to, write to or ever see again for the rest of my life.  Her last words to me were something like "Have a great time celebrating Raymond's birthday tomorrow and tell him happy birthday for me."  Sometime between the hours we were celebrating my son's birthday and possibly up into the following morning she died.  Just like that.

When a mutual friend told me that he was surprised that I didn't cry or show great sadness at her memorial service I wasn't sure how to take his comment.  I could only explain to him that she and I had spent an unusual amount of time together the last week of her life and I could only guess I found comfort in knowing that.  I had told her of my new artventures that were to take place at school, she treated me out to an early birthday lunch (instead of the following week on my birthday), we spent time shopping, eating and talking all weekend.
I wish I had saved some of the silly messages she'd leave on my answering machine at the job just to hear her voice again but due to bouts of foul language I had to immediately delete them!  HA!  Not cool in a school setting!
The initial sadness has lifted and now I know what the true meaning of "her memory will live on" means because that's what I've been left with.  But there's still that void that will be around forever. 

Summer's Here....

.....and believe it, so am I!

 

 

 I've been traveling up and down the school hall with a cart full of art supplies stopping in each class to inject healthy doses of paint, ink, glue, paper and whatever else I can think of.  Below was the seventh grade's interpretation of Romare Beardon's collage art piece "Three Women."  I knew all those scrapbook paper packs I'd been hoarding would come in handy one day. 

 

What's scarier than a group of 14 year-old students wielding paintbrushes? 

 Answer:  I'll tell you what's scarier than a bunch of 14 year-olds wielding paintbrushes:  a bunch of 14 year-olds wielding SPRAY PAINT CANS!  But didn't they do a great job with their abstract sculptures?  This was the eighth grade's last art project before they graduated.   

Tucked inside the vintage painted folio below are pages holding tag art dolls - all with original painted faces that I've been working on over the past few weeks.  I'm pretty excited about my leap into drawing my own faces to use with my tag art!  I'll share them with you in the coming days.  But you can get a glimpse of one of the tags at the very top of this post.       

The Tag Art Project is a class I'll be teaching on Saturday, June 29th over at Stampin' From the Heart in Los Angeles.  If you're interested in taking the class, e-mail me for more information. 
As much as I've enjoyed preparing art lessons and watching them evolve at the hands of children ranging in age from 4 - 14, it feels good to be free to create my own personal stuff.  Hope you can join me for some fun next Saturday!