This is an acrylic painting that I entered into a gallery at a local town festival back in April. I was allowed three paintings for the show. I left several at the gallery as the owner had requested me to, since she wanted to display them all after the festival. When I arrived at the meet and greet function the night before the festival, I noticed that this painting was missing and one of my others was substituted. I don't know why the decision was made to sub this painting and the only explanation I was given was that there were mixed feelings about it. Since I'm fairly new to diplaying my works, I did not press the issue.

On the day of the festival I was browsing in the Wyatt Waters Gallery, across the street from the festival gallery. Mr. Waters is quite a well known watercolorist and has made a successful living from his art. His wife Vicki runs his gallery. I was talking with them about my favorite painting by him and it turns out that this painting is also Vicki's favorite. In talking with them the subject of my art came up and Vicki said she'd seen my work in the festival gallery and said she liked it, especially the skull painting. Then she suddenly asked me if they'd asked me to take it out. I told her they did. She said she'd been in the gallery on the day before the festival and saw the painting and also overheard talk of pulling it.

When I told her that they'd taken it upon themselves to sub one of my other works for the skull, she seemed a little irritated by the news. She asked me where the painting was. I told her it was across the street in the gallery closet. She asked me if I would go across the street and get it so she could display it in the front window of their gallery for the festival. Needless to say, I was very flattered that she wanted to put the painting in their gallery along with Wyatt's work for the day of the festival.



This photo is a very proud me, standing in front of the Waters Gallery with my humble painting next to the works of Wyatt Waters. Let me take a moment here to praise these people, as they were very kind to me. Bear in mind, I have never met these folks prior to that day. When I felt my work had been rejected, they embraced it. I am grateful for that. Vicki's kindness to a total stranger especially impressed me. She turned a negative into a positive for me at a time in my life when, as I have already stressed here, I'm a little lost. Her one little act of kindness has helped to keep me going with my art.

I hope that if anyone is ever in the Clinton area they will stop in and visit the Waters Gallery. You'll enjoy Wyatt's wonderful works and chatting with them. These folks are genuine and good people. You don't meet a lot of folks like that these days.

This is my first homework assignment from art class. After I was assigned this in class, I realized I had forgotten some really basic rules. I had to get ten items from Miss Dianne's closet and draw them in class. This was a great exercise for me, but In class I was only able to complete three items and I would never have gotten all ten on the page! I learned from my homework assignment that I'd also forgotten some some rules on perspective.

For my homework project, I chose items from my home that I think are really cool; a doll I made some years ago from found items including deer antler, spanish moss and bird feathers, the egg and feather from the drawing in my earlier post (Gee, I think I love drawing those two items...), a seashell from the beach at Ship Island, some tiny Southwestern pots, a marble cross, and a wooden cube and egg that I painted some time back. The cube did not turn out good at all and I would have erased if I could, but some misttakes you just can't fix. The cross also lacks something to be desired, but the rest of it looks good enough I think. Now when I'm practicing this type of drawing, I try to make sure to include a cube or box in order to practice the perspective.

This is another picture torn from a magazine that my teacher handed me to draw upside down and same size. I think it's a Tiffany ad. This time, I used a ruler and I measured everything in millimeters. It turned out much better than the first endeavor, but she still wants me to practice with the pencil as a ruler may not always be at hand (so I'll make sure to have an extra with me at all times? Heehee).

This drawing is from a picture torn from a magazine. My art teacher handed this to me and said to take it home and draw it upside down, which is actually a common art exercise, however, I'd never actually been asked to do it in other art classes I've had. I also had to do it the same size, by measuring it with my pencil. That pencil did not work out well for me. The eyes were squinty and I had a tough time measuring them with the pencil. Then I thought the eyes were just too plain, so I tried to fancy them up a bit - huge mistake! She turned out really scary looking. I only post this to show how improvement happens when you keep trying.

This is stuff I found in my backyard and decided to draw as a tiny still life; part of a bird's eggshell, a feather and a little stick with some interesting fungus on it. I love little stuff like this. It's like gold to me when I find it. I particulary love the eggshell.

Since I am lost, I'm trying to find myself again through art. I'm taking a class and the teacher starts you off with returning to the basics, beginning with drawing. This is some practice for my class.

I did this yesterday afternoon during a creative session with a friend who is taking the class with me. She is a class ahead of me and is working on her second pastel drawing. I get to start my first pastel in class the week of June 19th when our teacher returns from an art jaunt to Italy. In the meantime, I'm doing some practice with my own subjects. I will post some of my completed assignments if I think they are worthy of anyone looking at.