Thursday, June 17, 2010

Hoping

It has been a busy week so far: classes, painting, garden and..oh yes ! a birthday !!!! I started it with pink cupcake goodness and a rasta birthday song from my brother and sister in law. So I have been happy dancing all morning. 50+ birthdays can be as magical as any other kind. It's all on how you look at things. Am I getting older, or am I just trying to live the very best life I possibly can and been magically granted another year to do it in? Gotta say, I'll take the second any day. Actually I will take it this very day. I have promises of sushi and some lovely serenades on my voice mail and more happiness planned for the next few days including an Etsy meet-up where I will meet St. Louis Etsy creators and share adventures and ideas. whew...lots of stuff and its all good.

Ok, the Hope cup jumped into my head as soon as I saw it. It really exists as a creation by my beloved Pastor who is a ceramic artist of great talent and wisdom. The arrangement begged to be painted and I snapped a photo quickly, but the painting was already done in my mind. I have been admiring the Still Life paintings of the Impressionists for the past few weeks. Most folks are familiar with their landscapes..but they all did quite a few Still Lifes, too. Manet did many floral Still Lifes towards the end of his life and they are soft and amazing.Berthe Morisot and Toulouse Lautrec favored dark backgrounds and colorful foregrounds so I decided to prime this small artboard with black gesso and work the colors over that. WOW, was that fun. It came together really quickly and I loved the effect. Colored gessoes are my new true love. This will go into my Etsy in the very near future.
My classes at the St. Louis Artists Guild are going great. I had two more students jump in this week and they are exciting, talented folk. This is my demonstration piece from Monday. Our goal was to collage as much as possible of our image. We covered altering magazine pages with Nevrdull and citrasolve. This piece started with a page of carpet advertisements and a few calendar pages from a butterfly calendar., then I layered on paint, stencils and stamps to complete the image. The journal I am working on is an old date book with long narrow pages...a bit of a challenge as far as composition. The journaling (writing) part is about my feelings regarding art as a spiritual path.
Next week we are going to focus on creating faces on the journal pages and losing fear of drawing ! That should be a lot of fun. After next week's class, my birthday celebration will continue with a visit to the St. Louis History museum to see an exhibit of treasures from the Vatican. I have constant fantasies about visiting Italy, and visiting the Vatican as well as other wonders. So this is a teenie tiny step in that direction. I'll have to find a sidewalk cafe serving cappuccinos afterwards !!! OK maybe I'll just have a glass of Chianti and some pasta and call it even.
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Friday, June 11, 2010

June Dance

I am happy dancing this Friday morning. Last night I read a lovely blog on the St. Louis Artists guild's website about my Art Journaling classes. I forwarded the article to several family members who forwarded it to OTHER friends and family and my email box was full of warm goodness that just about beamed out of my computer. Being described as a modern day Georgia O'Keeffe just about knocked me over. I refer to that wonderful personage as SAINT Georgia of New Mexico..my former haunt and constant passion.

My classes seem to be going well. I have such wonderful students. They are wondrous personages themselves. The Artists Guild is in a lovely little park with a turtle filled pond and wandering pathways through old trees. the houses in this part of Clayton look like gingerbread houses and make me think of Hansel & Gretel. What a great atmosphere for freeing up the imagination and playing with color and paper and all our favorite art toys.

More happy dancing: my precious little garden is blooming its little head off with tiny to huge orange yellow sunshine flowers. the cucumbers are getting fat, but look like gherkins right now, the zucchini is shooting out fireworks of abundance. I am dreaming of loads of zucchini bread lined up in my oven. I used to have a diet bomb recipe for zucchini bread that called for a cup of vegetable oil and more than that of sugar....sounds gross but the bread was heaven. If anyone bumps into a recipe like that, please send it my way. In the mean time I have a few new ones to try that are a bit more timid in the cholesterol department.

My studio is a shambles and I am finishing up some lovelies I hope to share with you all next week. If you want to check out the blog entry at SLAG go www.stlouisartistsguild.org , click on blogs at the top of the page and it is under "Kathleen Barnes and the Art of Journaling.

Have a great week-end !
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Friday, June 4, 2010

We are Ready !!!!!

I've cleared the deck at Studio PaintDiva...ready for some wonderful new projects.
My muses have been consulting and sharing their wisdom.
WE are well rested and ready for action....um...after some sushi......

And tea has been served and friends have been invited...so are you...You are invited, too ! My Art Journaling class at the St. Louis Artists' Guild is a GO. I am so excited that I will be actually meeting some Facebook friends, some new friends and some well known darlings. Monday morning we will be gathering in Clayton to create, share and learn. Could the week have any better a beginning ?

" Through all the world there goes one long cry from the heart of the Artist: Give me leave to do my utmost"

Isaak Dinesen from "Babette's Feast"

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