Vacation to Texas to see my family (and ART!)

My family lives 900 miles away. I've always had family 900 miles away, because my parents are from Texas...and when I was 19, they moved back to Texas where their family lived. SOOOoooo I still make the trek to visit family every 18 months or so. I wish I could go more often!! And stay SO MUCH LONGER!

Anyway, I enjoyed my visit this summer.

We went to see the Spanish Governor's mansion, which is like 400 years old. Wow. 

We also looked at a beautiful mansion turned art museum and a natural history museum.

We enjoyed my parent's newish place, biking, hiking and swimming

We enjoyed laughing and visiting with family, and of course, making art with them!!

Helping with the County Fair

So I had a new sort of experience with the county fair this year. I helped to display all of the work in the Fine Arts Open Class division, and got to judge the work, too. There was some crazy amazing art in it.

What a difficult thing to do! To judge, I mean. I often tell my students how subjective art criticism is. It is so much based on a judge or critics opinion. And so when I was the judge--I tried to base it on art theory and on the difficulty of the medium/subject matter, but inevitably my opinion got in there somehow.

This kid's dragon was amazing!!! And he was so tickled with his ribbon. 💓

Also, THAT WAS A LOT OF WORK!! Next time you put your stuff into a competition--tell the staff a hearty "Thank You" because they are going to put hours and hours into displaying and judging it, like 20+!! But I could tell by the people doing it that it is definitely a labor of love for them. They love sharing the fair experience with people. 💗💗💗

A Birthday Party and a Summer Art Camp.

What amazing experiences!!

I got to give a little girl her DREAM birthday party--a BOB ROSS birthday!! We painted and painted with all of her friends and she just loved it, which made my day.

I also had an incredible experience getting to share Bob Ross painting with a whole room full of kids for a week. I spent two days with one group and then two days with the next and we painted, as they learned that they are "Fearfully and Wonderfully" made, which is a message that is near and dear to my heart.

It is such a blessing to get to share my art journey with so many young kids--to give them a spark and a joy of painting that may just last the rest of their lives!

Classes at E.T. Mahoney State Park

This summer I had such a fun and interesting opportunity. I taught classes at the Lied Lodge at E.T. Mahoney State park. And it was so fun!

Every couple of weeks I packed up all of my stuff and drove out to the park and taught people to paint. I think the thing I love about it, is SO MANY of them had NEVER PAINTED! It is so fun to show people what they are capable of.

Some people were also picking up the brush for the first time in many years, which was also fun.


Or sharing their love of art with their kids.

I LOVE MY JOB!!!

Snow Day = Catch Up Day...sort of

First, I slept in. And it was glorious!

Then I began the arduous, and never ending, task of putting away all the things from my classes last week (which is when my second semester of teaching really began in earnest). And, boy, was it a lot of stuff!

I taught at seven different locations this week, which is two more than normal, plus there was an Open House at Michael’s, that I had to have class brochures ready for. On top of that I’ve been trying to finish grades for one co-op and had the first day of the semester with three of the five kid groups I teach. AND I started driving my new car (which is a stick shift) last week to most of my  things. It was exciting!!

So yeah, things got a little LOT behind for me.

But in a couple of hours I had most of it put away and even packed for several things I have going on this week:

I even found some long lost practice sketches and paintings, and a precious painting I made for an invitation for a fun playdate/party my sweet little boy and I had with friends several years ago (he’s not really a sweet little boy anymore, he’s a kind, smart, funny, and handsome young man!). It brought back many happy memories--we'd had teddy sized snacks and a teddy & friend obstacle course with medals for all the participants:

Teddy Party invite

I painted these 7-8 years ago with Niji watercolors

Marker fun from several years ago when I taught a fun preschool art class.