Alive with color

"Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life"-Picasso.  Recently finished these paintings:

"Alive with color" 24"x24", acrylics and collage on canvas

"Grace"18"x18", acrylics and collage on canvas

Tulip 6"x 6", acrylics on canvas

Peace 8"x 8", collage on claybord

Mural project at the Flat Iron Arts Building

 My art sister Pam Peterson and I just recently finished a mural at the Flat Iron Arts Building in Chicago.  This mural is part of the "NOW you see it, NOW you don't" mural exhibit at the building.  There are over 60 artists participating in this event.  The murals are going to be on display April 6, 2012 (opening reception) through May 4th, 2012 @ the Flat Iron Arts Building, 1579 N. Milwaukee Ave, Chicago.  After that all murals will be painted over with white and gone forever.
Our (Flora inspired) mural consists of many layers:

 The colorful first layer

 Second layer

getting more and more colorful

 close up

 painting in the trees

 forest emerging

 another close up

Love how in the background colors are showing through the top layer.

Pam had many accidents stepping into paint...

Being in the city is energizing but also exhausting because of overstimulation.  Pam and I had a great time working on this project.  We had so much fun!
PS. This mural project is also posted on the Flat Iron Artist Association's blog, check it out:  http://fiaablog.blogspot.com/

Layering with acrylics

This is a painting I recently finished.  It is done in several layers of acrylics.  I didn't think of painting in so many layers until I saw Flora Bowley's paintings. This gives the painting more depth. This piece is 14" x 14" and it also includes tissue paper and an image transfer.
I'm also very excited to be taking Flora's "Bloom True" online painting course.  Her techniques are intuitive and very freeing. We're in week two of the five week course right now. So far we are only intuitively putting many layers on the canvas, so not really painting.  I can't wait to see how the paintings will evolve over the course of the next few weeks.
Just to be clear, the above painting was not done during this e-course.  I only got the idea of layering acrylics when I saw one of Flora's paintings.

These are some of my students' collages. We did a collage unit recently in the art class that I'm teaching.  The first project was a fish with scales made of magazine pages and construction paper.  The second one was a birthday cake.  For this they used buttons, doilies, fabric, collage papers, magazine papers, brown craft paper, markers, tissue paper. The kids enjoyed working with paper. They are such great artists!

Bigger & better

Buddha lotus

Just got back from visiting family overseas. It was great fun and refreshing to get away. Loved visiting the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. It was inspiring!  Really missed my studio and my art supplies, so I really appreciate them again. I now have new energy to paint (so grateful!!).  I had started this acrylic painting over the summer and had set it aside because I didn't know where to go with it.  So when I came back I knew what to do and finished it in a few days.  It is done in the style of Flora Bowley.  I admire her work so much.  It's is a huge canvas 22" x 28"(big for me anyway). I think I'm going to do more big paintings from now on.  It's kind of fun!
While in the plain for all those hours, I was reading "The Agony and the Ecstasy: a biographical novel of Michaelangelo", which inspired me more.  Very interesting.
My art sisters and I have a great New Year's resolution: to do something arty EVERYDAY this year, even if it is sketching an idea in a journal for two minutes.  So far, so good, but then again it's only January :)

Local newspaper article

A couple of weeks ago, I was featured in one of the area newspapers.  The main goal was to promote the Bloomingdale exhibit for the Midwest Collage Society and to promote collage as a fine art form. Here's the link:
http://lagrange.suntimes.com/entertainment/8849422-421/hinsdale-artist-makes-up-for-lost-time.html

The painting above is a 24"x36" pastel drawing that I had made in 2005.  During vacation in Mexico, I was inspired by this Mayan woman walking in front of us and her beautifully embroidered dress.

Next exhibit, finished pieces from workshop

The next art exhibit I'm participating in is organized by the Midwest Collage Society and is called "Peaceworks" and is going to be from November 12-December 16, 2011 at the Bloomingdale Park District Art Museum.  There are also some other exciting exhibit opportunities on the horizon.

These  two pieces were finished at collage artist Laura Lein-Svencner's one day collage workshop.  It was fun to try a different technique, using more paint and less paper and working in  many layers.

 The three pieces above were some of the pieces I finished at Laura's fall collage class at the LaGrange Art League.  Some of the pieces are at the Bloomingdale Art Museum exhibit.  The collage class was challenging and I learned many things.  Being able to finish a piece at the end of each class was great.

These are examples of some of the beautiful art my students made.  They all received a white leaf and a plate with four colors of paint.  It is amazing that at the end the leaves all look different.  The children had so much fun.  Then some children mixed the left over colors on the paper plate and discovered that they could scratch into paint with the other end of the paint brush.  They were so excited.  All you heard during class were giggles.  I really enjoy teaching art and learning from my students.  They are so free and paint without fear. This quote from Picasso is very true:
"Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up."

Update

 Last night at the Pink Ribbon awards at Hinsdale Hospital with my art sister and survivor Janet.  I won 2nd place!  The painting was donated to the hospital.

My son Casper showing his support, checking out the silent auction and the food. 

I got to say a few words... about how cancer patients don't have control over a lot of things, but that we can choose our attitude.  It was a great ceremony.  Now I'm thinking about continuing to make more art to encourage cancer patients to be strong, optimistic and positive.