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The holidays are upon us and all of my girls are out trying to catch someone's eye.  They are really wanting new homes...very crowded here and they can't all fit on the dining room wall during the holiday feasts.  It's like sitting on the bench during the big game.  Here I am taking Allure and Bejeweled into the Seagrass Gallery.  I now have six paintings there and five gyotaku. 

Go in to check them out and tell Doris you saw it here!!! I believe in my Blog!

Last week saw me in two school classrooms...it's been years since I've retired and gotten out of the habit of being at school!  Here I was working with 5th graders at Stanwood Elementary.  It was a very quick lesson on color and then down to it...creating gift bags for the holidays.  These will be at Laurie's Boutique in downtown Stanwood.... for a donation you can carry your purchase away in an original art bag.  These doantions will go to the food bank.  Last year was the first time we tried this and it was a big success. So we are at it again!

It's hard to miss with creative kids guided by adults with a mission. This week I'm hanging out at the high school for a session with the older creatives. It will be fun to see what they come up with this year.

Working one on one with an excited, motivated art student is some kind of fun!  This young artist wanted to learn how to make a fish print for a project he is doing for his AP portfolio...fish n chips.....it is great that Ms. Merrick knew just who to call!!  I brought the papers and some metallic paints and his job was to find the fish.  I thought he had the hard part as there are times I go to Seattle to the Pike Place Market to get a rockfish....but no..his mom found one at the local QFC.  So, we both learned something!

I was able to give him enough pointers that he pulled the first one ..and it was great!!! Fun to be able to save someone else the agony of pulling duds. The room was a little fishy smelling and I am sure the classes for the rest of the day were wondering what the heck had been going on in there.....but Austin is happy!!!  When the whole project is done I'll see if he will send me a finished photo to show of.

Flick paint adds some real character and movement to my gyotaku, fish prints.  It is also very energizing....paint goes everywhere.  Just found a lovely cobalt teal glob on the scarlet Japanese maple.....very artsy.  I use four different brushes so I can get all different sizes of splats, globs, spots, and teardrops....and sometimes messes.  It really is pretty scary to take a really great print and then fling paint at it in the hopes it will land in a pleasing way. Doesn't always happen...in fact I usually mess up a couple during this stage.  This time I got one very big, bright, gold glob under the fish that takes the eye right to it instead of allowing the viewer to see the fish eye first....lost my focal point!!! Darn...the flickin' fairies were not totally on my side today. One thing I have learned for sure is that to try and fix such a thing only makes it worse...but it is so hard not to try!

Some of my fondest memories of teaching art include flick painting the paper mache snakes with the 6th graders.  They were awesome at it...just let it fly with no worries!!!!