Apparently it was my Drawing I class that began my fascination with hands.

Still life in scribbles.

Watercolor class was the most frustrating for me. I love watercolor paintings, but for the life of me I could not get things to turn out the way they looked in my head.

A lesson in turning an artist’s color work into a black and white piece (top) and turning a black and white work into color using homemade egg tempura (bottom). I call this “loose lips sink ships”, cause I’m clever that way. har har

Figure drawing. I do actually like this one, and it gave me a new way to look at the relationships in the lines of people and things.

My first two years in college my plan was to become an interior designer. I soon realized that I was a small-town, country-bumpkin girl who had only been exposed to design via magazines. I very soon became intimidated by the big city gals (and it was mostly women) in their designer clothing who had far more exposure to “real” design than I had. In addition I completed many of these assignments at the last minute, staying up all night, and a few of them I turned in late. (Which is the perfect segue into my next post about Adult AD/HD.) At any rate I changed my major 3 times – Interior Design, Audiology, and finally getting a degree (174 college hours later) in Public Health.

In the house purge for the garage sale I came across my old art portfolio.  I put all of it in the garbage. The pieces were warped, yellowed, and smelled mildewy. But I photographed it all before taking it to the curb. I am amused at the naiveté and lack of sophistication. Tomorrow  -Art History College Edition – where the level of sophistication and execution is just slightly raised. : )

The 4-H girls fantastic luminaries! It didn’t take them long at all to catch on to cutting silhouettes, and they each had their own style. I think they were pleased with the results, and I’m looking forward to working with them again.

Finally, finally I was able to take a few pictures of the graduating boy so I can send out announcements. I would not want to be a portrait photographer in real life, but I think for an amateur I do a pretty darn good job! Now to address them all and mail them out before graduation…

Some track meets attended, a Color Run ran walked (pictures later this week), field trips taken, all the usual end of the school year madness. I’m not complaining one tiny bit – in years past it was far more crazy.

House sorted and de-stuffed, garage sale over and done with, and there were only a few items left to deal with. Brian set out the leftovers with a “FREE” sign and it disappeared. The best part was a gaggle of neighborhood kids gleefully carrying off some of the loot, each with a stuffed animal under their arm.

And I’ve been comprehensively researching adult ADD. More on this later as well.

On Friday I will be presenting an art/craft project to three girls who are in 4-H. My friend, who is one of the girl’s mothers, asked if I would like to lead the girls in some occasional art projects.  I jumped at the opportunity, as it’s really fun teaching interested kids some new tricks. My boys aren’t interested in creative projects anymore, and I really miss that. This is the second project I will do with them. The last project was making prints, by carving a design into foam, inking them up and printing. They had a lot of fun with that. This time I’m going to have them make paper cut luminaries. So, I designed one of my own to make sure the idea would work. I love how it turned out, and of course my mind is off and running with more ideas for these. I’m thinking I will add a few to the shop in the next couple of weeks.