June Art Camp Is In The Books

June Art Camp

Is In The Books

These two young ladies came to all four weeks of art camp and they are to be commended for their:

Hard Work

Attentiveness

Dedication

Talent

Eagerness to Learn

and a

Fun Loving Attitude

Here's a little video of them working on a quick study of a tree as they learned about creating depth with color.

These trees were done quickly and on canvas paper that had been taped to a board.

 You can see in their sky we created depth and in their grass also.  These trees were lots of fun. 

They also finished these 11" x 14" fish paintings.

 I had to get in the act.

Then we had a little graduation ceremony and each girl got a certificate for finishing art camp, and that's when the camera went a little wonky.

 

Sorry Jocie Kate.  This one's a little blurry.

And here is Kelsey getting her completion certificate.

I think we all had a great time learning to paint these last four Fridays.

If your child would like to participate in art camp,

I have two sessions going on in July.

Teens and Tweens, ages 10-16 starts Thursday, July 2, 10 a.m. -noon for four Thursdays in a row.

Young Artist Camp, ages 7-9 begins Wednesday, July 8, 10a.m.-noon for four Wednesdays in a row.

Each camp is $100

Your child will learn how to:

Mix color

Use different types of brushes

Create perspective

Learn about composition

Work on different surfaces

Your child will complete:

Several studies,

Sketches

Exercises 

and a minimum of two paintings.

Please contact me at 502-523-0663 or slgraves6@gmail.com to get your child signed up. 

Just a few days left before I give this beauty away.

If you haven't signed up to receive this blog in your inbox,

gittr done now.

Go to the top of this blog on the right hand side where it says to

Sign Up To Receive My Newsletter and Blog.

Put your email address in the box and you're done.

I'll be giving away a different painting every month,

 so get in on the fun.

Thanks.

 

Perry Park Paintsters

A Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight

10 women came together to paint beach scenes

at beautiful Perry Park.

It was hot, but these ladies were dedicated to painting 

a lovely beach scene.

 

They painted a sunset, reflections on the water,

a sandy beach and a palm tree swaying in the breeze.

This was a fun bunch of ladies

and I think they deserve a round of applause for

toughing out the heat and finishing their 

work of art.

Look at all those smiles and beautiful

beach scenes.  

I had a wonderful time ladies.

Hopefully you had a great time unleashing 

creativity that is just yearning to get out.

Hopefully we'll get together again soon.

Tonsils and Paint Brushes

Sometimes Girls Just Need to Paint

One of these twins is not like the other,

One of these fun ladies had her tonsils out

and

it's been a crazy ride. 

To help (pink bow) Jayden feel better, Mom thought a Saturday morning painting spree might be the ticket.

Judge for yourself!

We are just getting started with our butterflies.

You can see the concentration going on

as they paint their butterflies to match their own personalities.

 

 Taylor on the left, loves yellow as you can see by her butterfly and her hair bow.

And Jayden on the right, loves pink.  

Two of her wings are pink, but they don't show up as well on here as they did in person.

 

Each young lady took control of her own painting and decorated it the way they wanted.  

 

Lots of applause please.

 

Thanks for stopping by.

 

Sign up to receive my blog in your inbox because I'm giving away this painting at the end of the month to one of my subscribers.

 

 

Big Announcement Coming Soon

Hear Ye! Hear Ye!

Read All About It!

I have a monstrous big

announcement 

Coming Soon!

What is she trying to tell you?

Can you guess what I'm doing?

 Paints and Brushes

Practicing rocks.

I have a huge big project I'm creating for you and I can't wait to tell you all about it.

If you can put all the puzzle pieces together, you might be able to figure it out.

Just for fun, leave me a comment about what you think my new big project is.  The first person to guess correctly gets a pretty cool prize.  

Thanks for stopping by today.  

4-H Art Camp

I Pledge My Heart to Better Art

That's not exactly how that line in the 4-H motto goes,

but today in 4-H art camp we were loving us some art!

 We had 20 kids into two groups of 10,

 We were painting angel fish.

 20 kids and 20 different angel fish.

 Wait!  That's Christin Herbst painting a fish.

 Some had to stand and some had to sit to paint.

 Some painted on an easel and other didn't.

 We had kids from Carroll and Gallatin Counties.

 One fish 

Two fish

Black fish

Blue fish.

 1st Group with their paintings.

2nd Group with their paintings.

Art Camp Progress

Art Camp Progress

We're half way through the first session.

And how's it going you ask? 

Week 1 Looked Like This

 

Color Wheels were created as we learned how to take the three primary colors and create any color with them. 
 

 Color charts were created as we saw what colors showed up by mixing colors together.

Here's a little video as we started our paintings.

 On to Week Two

We studied brushes and brush strokes today.
These young ladies learned about the different types of brushes, what they are made of and what they did.

 

 In this exercise they had ultramarine blue paint and used all the synthetic brushes I had to see all the shapes they could make, how the paint reacted to the brush, how it slid across the paper and how many types of strokes could they make out of one brush.

This little video is of them learning about brushes.
We used ultramarine blue for synthetic brushes,
Then we used red paint with bristle brushes
and we used yellow paint with sponge brushes.
When they were finished they had three large pieces of paper with all sorts of brush strokes. 

 This little video is of them working on their peacock feather paintings.

And finally! 

 

We had some peacock feather paintings.

One thing about learning to paint is to let the brush become part of your hand and that only comes with practice.  Hours and hours of practice.

But these girls are well under way to learn how to practice, what to practice and how to create something.

Thanks for stopping by during art camp.

Don't forget to sign up to receive our blog in your inbox to win this fun sunflower painting being given away at the end of the June.  

Go to the top of the blog and on the right hand side, is a box to put your email in and that's all you have to do and you're entered.

 

FREE Lesson

FREE!

Everyone loves to hear that magic word.

Well, here is a free video I made of how to set up your acrylic paint palette.  

I use a Masterson paint box available wherever art supplies are sold for under $30 I believe.  Make sure it comes with a sponge and you'll need to buy palette paper the same size.  

I'll give you time to go fix your popcorn

and on with the show.

  

Hope that helped you on your art journey.

Drawing On The Left Side

Drawing On the Left Side

of your brain.

We are learning to draw in River Run Gallery!

and it ain't stick people.

Oh My Gosh are we learning.

Our teacher, Jeremy Cobb, is teaching a group of 8 people to draw 

in a class that will continue for six lessons over 12 weeks.

We are quite an eclectic group of very young, young, middle age and then there's me!

Jeremy is doing a demo of a still life he set up from objects in my stash.

We learned about depth, perspective, scale, strokes and all sorts of other important aspects of drawing.

This was Jeremy's demo for us.  

He had this done in less than an hour teaching us the whole time.

This is called additive drawing, where you add more to the drawing.

 

 This was his demo for subtractive.

He started graying the paper with lots of quick strokes to fill up the page,

then he added in the darkest lines,

and then he took a kneaded eraser and erased where the highlights should be.

Next is a video made during the class of different aspects of the class.

Take a peek.

It's short.

Then, when we had soaked up as much knowledge as we could,

we did a quick sketch of the teapot.  

 

Now doesn't this look like fun?

We will be forming a new beginning class that will commence in August.

The six lesson class is $150 and arrangements can be made for a payment schedule if that would work better for you.  

Classes are two hours and you will be having a combination of lecture, demonstration and drawing.  You will need your own supplies.

Please email me at slgraves6@gmail.com and put drawing lessons in the subject box if you would like more information or would like to sign up.  

Thanks for stopping by today

and stay on the right side. 

 

Practice Makes Perfect

Practice Makes Perfect,

But only if it's perfect practice.

And just what is perfect practice?

Don't get me wrong, these aren't perfect paintings,
but the practice was good.
Here's how I know.
 
Any practice should include working on something you need to improve on.

I always work on perspective and in getting the highlights in the right places.

On this painting I worked on the highlights on the trees and in the grass.

I changed the roof several times and the shading on it.

I also like to practice on painting rocks and trees.
 So I added both to this practice session.

I am pleased with the mountains and the far away trees , but I will be working on the foreground rocks and the grass in the left foreground and just beyond is not what I want, so I'll also be working there.

I had to meet a contactor at the gallery this morning so I had some time while he was working to work on the areas I was not satisfied with.  You can see the difference in the foreground and midground rocks and I took out some grass and added other grass. 
I am now satisfied with this practice session.

Are there things I wish looked better.
Absolutely!
But I improved on my rocks which is one of the things I love to paint and compositionally, I am happy with this effort.

These are painted on 12" x 16" canvas paper.  I like the canvas paper because I don't feel like I'm wasting a stretched canvas for my practice, it is cheaper than a canvas or masonite support and it has some very good tooth to it.  (The feel of the weave in the canvas).  It also is very easy to store without taking up much room.

It's important to concentrate on the areas you don't think you've nailed and work on them.

It will take time and you will improve, after some frustration.  For practice, don't rush, stop, stand back and look at how it's coming together and analyze why you don't like something and work on that particular part of the piece.  You will feel success, even if for just a small part of a painting, and you will want to move ahead for more practice.  Artists don't get good immediately.  Many have tremendous talent, but they still must work on skills to improve their art.  They improve as they study their work, the work of others, look deeply at lots of art, analyzing it as you go.  Why do I like it?  How did the artist achieve it?  Why is his perspective so great and mine is off?  What do I need to improve on my perspective, shading, highlighting, color mixing, brush strokes and then go and work on those parts of your work.  As you work on the same thing repeatedly photograph it as you go so you can see the difference and the improvement.  Never give up.  All these things are what make your practice perfect. 


Having perfect practice implies that the result will be perfect, but
if you learn from your practice and move your work forward,
you just had perfect practice.

What Is Art Camp?

What Is Art Camp

And Why Should My Child Go?

Art camp is two hours one day a week for four weeks camp

where your child will learn the basics of all art

such as:

Making and understanding a color wheel

Making and understanding color charts

Learning how to mix color

Learning how to use color to create shapes and forms

Learning about composition

Learning about brush strokes

Learning how to care for brushes

These concepts are necessary for your child to move forward in their art journey.

Your child will do all that you see above and many other exercises, studies and sketches

as they improve their art skills.  If your child is interested in art, this would be a great place for them to explore the subject without you having to buy all the supplies and then finding the books or videos to teach them.

Then while we are learning these skills,

they will complete one 8" x 10" and one 11" x 14" painting.

Your child will have fun as they learn the why and how of art

and improve their skills and knowledge.  

Art Camp is $100 for all four weeks and I supply everything they will need to complete the camp.

I have divided art camp into two different age categories.  Young Artists are ages 7-9 and their first camp meets Friday, June 5, 12, 19 and 26 from 10-noon.  Teens and Tweens are ages 10-16 and they will be meeting on Wednesdays, June 10, 17, 24 and July 1 from 10-noon.  

The second session will be a repeat of the first and those dates are 

Young Artists - Wednesdays July 8, 15,22, and 29 from 10-noon.

Teens and Tweens, Thursdays, July 2, 9, 16, 23, 10-noon.

If art camp is more of a commitment that you want to make right now, I am offering lots of individual classes throughout the summer.  Lots more than I normally schedule.

Please click HERE to see all the classes as they become available.  

Finally, if your teen or tween would like to join in on any of my paint along classes, please feel free for them to sign up and come.  Those classes are usually $40 and we either do a 16" x 20" or an 11"x14" painting.

Thanks for stopping by today

and I hope your child will be joining us at 

Art Camp

Butterflys and Lighthouses, Sunflowers and Art Camp

Variety in River Run Gallery This Week.

Variety is the spice of life,

and it is important to have variety in:

meals

clothing

decorating

and

even

painting!

This week we have lots of variety going on in the classes being taught in the gallery.

 

Wednesday morning at 10 a.m. until noon we'll be painting this lighthouse.

This is from a photo I took in Charleston, SC., I think.  $40

Thursday, 10-11:30 a.m. Young Artists will be painting abstract butterflies.

Young Artists are 7-9 years old and have painted with me at least three times.  $25

 

 Thursday evening, 6-9 p.m. we'll be painting this beautiful big sunflower.  $40

 

Saturday morning, 10-11:30 a.m. we'll be painting these hydrangea garden stones.  $30

 

Saturday afternoon, 1-2:30 p.m. Young Artists will be painting these tulips. $25 

Add into this week Young Artists Art Camp starts Friday at 10 a.m. and will go four consecutive Fridays at the same time.  Your child will learn a lot of art concepts, will do many studies and exercises and complete 2 paintings.  $100

Click HERE to get a full description of all classes this month.