Mural for Children's Church

You won't see any paintings from me for a while. I am painting 80 feet of mural in the River Run Christian Children's Church. The theme is a river with Florida critters.

 This was the first day. Hap and Audra painted the big areas, saving me hours of time!

I did some landscaping.

Added some critters.

Kathy Garvey came yesterday and added some cute little snails, birds, fish and lizards.

This is a really fun labor of love!

Carmen

My Sketchbook Project for the Brooklyn Art Library

I am painting a mural in our church and working there every day but Fridays, but in my spare time I am part of the Sketchbook Project. I will complete a sketchbook called My Life in Limericks and send it to the Brooklyn Art Library, where it will be digitized, go on a tour, then remain in the library for visitors to view. There's no money in it, just a lot of joy.

Here are some excerpts. Click on the pictures to view larger.

More 50-Stroke Paintings

 I did more paintings in only 50 strokes, as it is great practice for me since I tend to overdo details if I'm enjoying myself too much. It takes a great deal of concentration to limit my strokes and still arrive at a recognizable result.

I highly recommend this exercise for any painter who wants to simplify.

Carmen

Steve Jobs Collage in Word Play Exhibit in Winter Garden, Florida

This collage is in the "Word Play" exhibit at the SoBo Gallery & Art Center in Winter Garden for the month of January. The theme is artworks with words incorporated in them. I am really excited about this, because I used to live in Winter Garden and I always call it my "Happy Days" stage of life. It was a lot like the TV show, just a carefree time of life with some very interesting characters. For sentimental reasons, I am very happy to be in the show, and after about 30 years away from Winter Garden I was happy to see that the town is smart enough to keep up with the times and become a very nice place to visit. The downtown area has managed to be quaint, beautiful and trendy all at the same time.

P.S. The collage just sold!

Carmen

50 Strokes of Chicken 5x7 Small Daily Painting Oil on Canvas

Our group challenge for the Pieces of 8 for December is to paint a painting using only 50 strokes. For those of us who have trouble simplifying, this is a great exercise. You have to think about each stroke and make it count. For areas like the ruff around the chicken's neck, I used one zigzag stroke for each color. That covered some territory with one stroke; however, the dot that is the eye is also just one stroke. At the end, it is hard to stop because you want to do just one or two more--but you must resist!

Carmen