The kayaking eyeballs are a work in progress I started in Flora Bowley’s class.  Flora has such a great teaching style. She nurtured and guided me as this canvas developed.   If I am blessed enough to have a chance at another live class with her I am jumping on that opportunity!! Here’s how it progressed…

Best part of this type of painting is that if you don’t like part of  it, keep painting.  It will change.  I am not a big fan of this much orange.  When I added the blues to it I began to like the orange.  I was amazed by how one element could impact the feeling of such a busy painting.

At this point, the busy-ness, the activity, the myriad of marks just made me happy.  But it didn’t feel finished yet.

After much contemplation I decided I wanted to draw eyes all over it.  I have been enjoying eyes and how I see the world.   As I drew I began to wonder if I had drawn fish.  See the gills in the black lines?

Yup.  Fish without tails is all I saw.

But once I added the white all I could see they were the eyes I was trying to draw. Ah, relief!

I was getting into this whole intuitive painting thing.  I wanted more color- I really like a lot of color.

Dripping the color down the painting did not turn out as I envisioned.  As I stepped back & took a deep breath the kayaks popped out at me.  The blue was the ocean.  Once it has been seen it can’t be unseen…

Now it’s kayaking eyeballs.  This still isn’t finished and I am a bit nervous about what else will show up in this painting…If you have a moment please stop by the great artists at Paint Party Friday and Creative Every Day!

I was blessed to be able to go to Dina Wakley’s weekend class at Donna Downey’s studio a while ago.   I was blown away by what it offered me- a sense of home.  Not my home but Donna’s home.  We were in her studio and it was Southern hospitality at its finest!  I made quite a happy mess while creating- as my table protector above shows!

Donna’s mother prepared our welcome dinner and brought our lunches.  I’m allergic to dairy so I never know how that is going to go when I travel.  Usually a hotel or restaurant sees me as a nuisance who is just being a pest.  Those of you with food allergies know what I mean.  Not here.  It was beyond anything I could have dreamed about.  Since her mom cooked the food she just left out the diary in mine & put a cute dairy free label on it.

Then she went a step further!  She packaged our lunches in the cutest containers. No plain brown paper bags here.  The cute wooden fork, the twine, the newsprint sandwich wrap.  This lunch just screamed, “Welcome, I am glad you are here!”  I could go on and on about the details that made this weekend extra special but I need to get to the art part too!

Donna was our hostess and Dina Wakley was our talented, relaxed, and nurturing teacher.  Over the course of the weekend we did several projects.  This post is already getting long so I’ll share just one of the projects today, a book.

One of the great things about going to an Inspired event at Donna Downey’s Studio is that you don’t bring any supplies.  It is all included.  That means I didn’t have to spend the time gathering materials and the hours it seems to put it all away when I get home.  It also allowed me to experiment with new supplies before I bought them.

Dina had a rule that you didn’t have to do it her way.  You could.  But you didn’t have to.  That meant freedom.  It meant experimentation.  It meant messy hands. It meant creative joy.

She had some of her new stencils from Crafters Workshop with her.  The paint lids stencil was pure fun to play with.  Can’t wait for them to hit the stores!

The top of the pink page was stamped with Donna Downey’s new wild geranium stamp.  I had fun playing with that one!

Have a few minutes?  Stop by   Creative Every Day , Inspire Me Monday and Art Journal Every Day!