P is for playing, peppers and Photoshop

Today is Art Everyday Month, day 16!

I have had a busy day. I taught 18 kids in my Young Rembrandts class this afternoon and spent the morning prepping. 

There was grocery shopping, dog walking and dinner prep in the mix too. By the time I am getting around to making my everyday art, I am out of ideas, and out of energy.

But, I am determined to do something everyday, so I opened Picasa and started scrolling through my pix seeking inspiration. Last summer I had a huge harvest of wild looking peppers - I took many pictures of them, and even drew some. One of my favorite photos swam into my vision. OK - P is for peppers.

The pepper in the photos are bright bright red and green and shiny  - somehow the colors are not grabbing me tonight - but the wild curvy shapes are interesting. So, I opened the image in Photoshop and just started to play - there is lovely music playing in the background, and frankly, trying filters and effects on photos with Photoshop is my idea of relaxation. I think the results are relaxing too - and so different from the original image. They have gone from garden reality to undersea abstraction with just the clicks of a mouse.

Once again this brings me to the value of this challenge - I am amazing myself with the variety of approaches I have at my fingertips. I feel like I am stretching and building my art muscles each day. Today's image suggests an idea for a painting .... so, who knows what tomorrow will bring.

N is for Nice and Warm

November weather is nasty more often than not. Its grey, its rainy. What could be more comforting that swirling great globs of sunshine colors across the canvas and basking in the warmth.

Art Every Day: C is for Cezanne

Day 3: Perhaps it is the result of painting apples, or even today's pears, but all this fruitfulness brings Cezanne to mind - and reminds me of one of my favorite art classes (Painting in Pastels, at PNCA).
One of our assignments was to select a section from a masterwork and copy it. I chose to work from pastels by Mary Cassatt and Degas (always an overachiever, I did the assignment three times).
So, today, I decided to seek some inspiration from studying Cezanne's painted apples. To the internet ...
My first click brought me to a wonderful website from the Metropolitan Museum of Art "Cezanne's Astonishing Apples" It is perfect for kids, with its "Look Closely" feature. But perfect also for me - I got to look, in detail, at his painting, Apples and Primroses, hear a nice story about his life, and learn how Cezanne approached his work.
My time spent with Cezanne also helped me understand the challenge I had while painting these pears. One is shiny, two are are not. I am still playing with it to get the light and the colors to work. I did this one on a dark grey Canson Mi Tiente. I like the way the dark color supports the bright white in the foreground.