This and that

grace in france
Busy time here, so there I'll let the photos do the talking - Daughter Grace is graduating from college tomorrow. Yes, tomorrow! She will have earned herself a BA in English a BA in French and a minor in Creative writing. Yes we are proud of her. We have an opening during the day 10-4 tomorrow as well at artstream featuring the beautiful spring work of Emily Marie Cox called Spring is in the Air

!

Along side that we are hosting a group of comic book/illustrative artsits for Free Comic Book Day, supported by Jet Pack Comics- a way cool store across the street from us filled with amazing artists and fun loving people.

My book: Art Lab for Kids is finished and getting it's final touches before sending it off to my lovely publisher. Can't tell you how wonderful that is! Happy happy times here!

chloe with some of her fabulous porcelain earrings

Daughter Chloe has finished up her work for her AP art class and I had to show you one of her pieces here: the deer head which she made from plaster and paint is just incredible.

Among other things, I can't wait to have it up in our home somewhere! She's going to have a booth at the Strawberry Banke Sundays in Portsmouth this summer too - so look for her there!

Summer classes are starting to fill up at the studio too - so grab a spot now while you can still select something and get your art on!

some of my mixed media class

See you next week!

A busy week!

Rainer's painting of us in Koeln at the Dom for it takes two (2)
Hello! Oops! This week has slipped by without a post - not my normal mode, but so many exceptional things happened this week. First, there was a deadline. It was met and not with a crazed feeling, but more of a completed good feeling.

Then there were snowstorms.

And beautiful daughters winning gold keys for their artwork.

And painting or six to finish.

And classes to teach.

And photos to take. And artwork to encourage along ... and hanging of our new show - more peeks on that around noon

painting class out at the pond

painting class out at the pond, originally uploaded by artstreamstudios.

Last Tuesday I took my adult painting class out to Patrick's (another one of my students and woodworker extraordinare...) home just 10 minutes away from the studio. He has a lovely property with a pond with lilypads, lots of trees and loads of boulders. Everyone was pressed into action as it was an earlier sundown than we thought with the big trees encircling the spot.
That proved to be a good thing for everyone as much information was put to canvas right from the start. The only problem is that it is so secluded we actually lost two students on the way ...
We'll be doing this again ... thanks Pat!
(here's Pat with the small boat that he is building for a client)

Saturday Art

, originally uploaded by artstreamstudios.

Saturday marked the 10th year of the permanent children's art exhibit in the Rochester Public Library's children's room. It doesn't seem possible that ten years has flown by - but it has!
The artwork fills the room moving from board books and three and four year olds art up to the easy readers and then finishing with high school work over at the young adult section. It has brought me a great sense of honor to have worked with over a hundred children on this project and now after ten years, updating the work with young artists in 2007.
Today we made foam cut prints and are letting them dry under the "Wall of Monsters"
The children's room has graciously given me this wall to display children's work in a rotating manner (oh yes! another little gallery to curate!) and not only is it a honor to do so, but the students are thrilled!
Daughter Grace was only 8 years old when we did this the first time and today at 18 she helped me out with an extra set of experienced hands! My flickr account has a set of photos from the two weekends of work, if you are interested click here to see the project and the "Wall of Monsters".

The word of the day is... melt ... as in the extra snow we received last night, melting away the cares of the world, and some butter for a batch of muffins.

Hearts to make

Can you tell how much I adore Valentines day? I really do. What is not to love about a holiday which is all about love? We have been making monsters here at artstream this past month, (check out the tutorial I wrote at Whip up) - and in between the paint drying and the stitching process we have been creating homespun valentines on canvas. Practicing our stitching and such. Ages 6 and up have been making these delights and I wanted to share them with you here. Aren't they sweet?

The other valentines have been created from monotypes made with waterbased printmaking ink and after they are dry, we have cut them into heart shapes. More on how those turn out tomorrow!