Meadville Council on the Arts, Member's Exhibit and Celebration

Last night was the opening reception which brought out many, in spite of the fact that the temperature was 3 degrees.  I was delighted to have three pieces represented in the show and it was nice to reconnect with the art community. I tend to stay holed up in the winter months!  These  are some snapshots from the event. 

" Moon Seeds"

 "Music of The Spheres"

 



"Passage"

Class Continues ....

This avocado was the last piece I did in the "greens" lesson.  I added the grocery store sticker..love it!

 

 

The next lesson was to sketch an object, using ink (no pencil and eraser) and using a continuous line, without lifting the pen.  This was hard!  However, it forces you to really look at the object, figure out how to do the continuous line and not lift your pen.  I did miss my pencil and eraser! On the other hand, I gave myself kudos for attempting to paint glass. 

 

This was another example of continuous line drawing, without benefit of pencil and eraser.  I swear this acorn squash is really quite round.  Something got lost between my eyes and the pen!

 

Stay tuned for the next lesson!

 

Winter is a Time For Learning and Study .....

 

It is important to stay busy in the long winter months.When it is so cold, and there is so much snow, leaving the house for any reason just makes no sense!  What to do? 

I decided to take an online art course, my very first!  It is being taught by Jane LaFazio and is titled

 " Sketching and Watercolor, Journal Style".  There are six lessons, covering six weeks.  We are about in the middle of the course.  The premise is to learn to sketch real objects, in a quick manner,, and to paint them just as quickly.  To be able to do this would mean you could  then sketch and paint on location, taking very little time to capture the moment or event. So far, we have been directed to paint fruits, and greens. I will post photographs of future lessons as they are completed. 

This course is  a particular challenge to me.  I am new to watercolor, and we are sketching and painting on TINY 5X7 pieces of paper! As most of you know, I really love acrylics on a very large canvas.  Not to mention, I have never even come close to trying to represent any bit of realism in my work. 

Confession:  I am LOVING watercolors !

 



 

 

 

 

Italian Herb Bread ...

I really have no words to tell you how wonderful my kitchen smells right now!  This is a still warm loaf of Italian bread, with wonderful herbs, and sun dried tomatoes and olive oil.  It is, of course, shown here over the beautiful tablecloth I bought in Sorrento, Italy back in November.  This loaf has a fine future in store, as it plays very nicely with our Panini Press !

 

 

 

A New Purpose ......

Our artificial Christmas tree is being repurposed, into a feeder and sanctuary for our winter birds.  It was dropping needles at an alarming rate so next year we will have a new one.,  In the meantime, it has a new life as an outdoor bird feeder!  The tree is somewhat sheltered on the covered patio outside my studio windows.
I made two feeders this morning using  twine, an orange, peanut butter and a seed assortment.  I hope they like it!  If you, my readers, have any other creative ideas I would love to hear them! Thanks for stopping by and a Happy New Year to all of you!

Italy: A Few Journal Pages ...

Italy: Those Wonderful Doors and Windows .....

I went a little crazy.  I was so taken with the uniqueness of the doors and windows along those narrow streets in the towns and villages.  There are no single family dwellings; residents live in apartments behind these very tall and very old walls.  Sometimes, behind these walls, are large courtyards. I wish I could have seen one. The doors literally open right on the street (as you can see in the last photograph).   Here are only a  few examples . I am thinking about perhaps painting some of them.  It occurred to me that even our very old homes are so much newer than these buildings and our windows and doors are now  quite standardized (ie; Anderson Doors and Windows).  I did not see any two windows or doors the same.  I am guessing there are not a lot of government regulations regarding the safety of decorative ironwork.

  How glorious are these !

Enjoy!

 

Italy: Under My Feet ......

One of the first things I noticed about Italy was the walking surfaces.  Aside from the big highways between towns, the city streets and sidewalks were anything but large slabs of concrete.Virtually all the streets were constructed of small squares of granite with designs in white marble. I hope I didn't miss something extraordinary while I was walking around looking down!

Many of the designs below are from either Pompeii or Herculaneum.  When looking at just a small segment, it is confusing.  But, you get the idea, all ancient, all recovered, all really cool!

 ancient mosaic floor

 ancient floor

 ancient floor mosaic ! the pieces were so tiny!

 ancient mosaic floor with such a contemporary design

 a street in Pompeii, a very, very large ancient city.

 This is the surface we walked on almost exclusively.  All the streets, all the sidewalks, all the piazzas were paved with these small pieces, arranged in gentle arch-like designs.  It was very easy to walk on.

 Steps are everywhere as the villages are quite hilly, in fact most of them were built on the top of hills.  This was to provide protection and gave resident soldiers  an advantage.

 the use of this brick material was not as evident as the small granite squares.

 Here you can see a private courtyard in Sorrento, behind an iron gate, showing the ever present curved design with the white marble accents..  Very beautiful and very old.

 an ancient floor in one of the ruins. It would seem that the streets in Italy adapted their design from this!

 an intricate mosaic design in one of the ruins

a random walking area in the ruins