calle ocho Friday night

What a mix! Art shows both on the streets and in the galleries, live music every 15 feet, dancers, lights, sidewalk bartenders, cigar stores with iconic rollers, and great inexpensive food. It happens every 4th Friday night in Miami's little Havana district.

My head is a little sore this morning but it was soooo worth it!

Technology, a cake with razor sharp teeth

One of the first things man has done when building a community has been to establish and promote Time. Clock towers are built in the centers of towns. Everyone soon gets into the beat. We need to know when to coordinate our transactions and how to plan for the future. What is your time worth? Hurry here and scurry there. Time flies and there never seems to be enough of it.
When was the last time you killed time?
Time as we use it is man made technology and though I can't imagine it, I'd love to live without it.
6 x 6 inches, acrylic on panel.

It's a cup, it's a pear, it's a...

How painting students must suffer the "What is it" question! The challenge of any still life is to meditate on what you see in front of you and make it have meaning, a feeling, and even a mood. My students, who range from beginner to slightly more and interested to uninterested, had 45 minutes to set up, execute, and clean up. They had about 5 class days depending on their schedules to finish their 8 x 10 inch canvas panels. Of the 32, these are my favorites, for a variety of reasons such as humor, chops, and embracing challenge. (ndp)

Shopping Spree

I am exhausted but still have time to run out and purchase a few things for class, art tools and snacks for my students, and miscellany for the week. Thank goodness for my job, and for friends that make me laugh about this.

Word prompt: "purchase"
Plastic on plastic.
6 x 6 inches acrylic paint on board

meet my students

They rarely seem this serious in class.
(ndp)

Rhythmic leaf studies

by my middle school students.







Combining blind contour drawing, collage and a painted focal point are intertwined in these leaf studies created from deep observation and repetitive line work. The student artists are in 7th and 8th grade (12 and 13 years old).
The challenge was, beyond actual practice with the tools, to keep the eye of the viewer moving throughout the work. It was the major challenge for each step in the process and the constant subject of discussion.

I'm floored

Nothing like hitting the stone wall with your brush!






Spent the morning painting the school theater floor (for Once Upon a Mattress), and a creating series of "stone" walls with an animal topiary on one side.
It feels good to wield a brush. Even if I'm just painting diamonds and stones.
I love this job. Ms. Hibshman, the theater director, is easy and a lot of fun to work with.

RIP Burton Chenet

Burton Chenet lost his life last night. He was a fine artist, and at one time my neighbor. We lived on the hills above Port-au-Prince and Burton and his brothers were fascinating to my sisters and I. I admit Burton was secret focus of my devotion when I was eight. Being in Miami surrounded by more Haitian art than ever these days, I thought I might run into him again. I looked forward to it. It's a terrible loss.

This is a painting of his (ndp).
His website is www.galerielakaye.com/art_haiti_chenet.html

Window pain reflected

Though sunny, the days felt quite foggy and surreal. I split the vacation for two lovely trips back through both parents houses. There I encountered memories of not yesterday, or my childhood even, but memories of my thirties... the years I traveled with an entourage of children, a husband, and in-laws. The years I felt I was building something. Perhaps a home, a ball of roots, thorns and brambles, none the less, an identity.
Now I have become a window pain. I look through it and out of it. There are reflections and framing, interior and exterior perspectives. Subjective and objective.
The experience, not completely easy, was- or must be- good for me.

sunset at the beach

Spectacular views. Cloud formations and surface shadows. Have you ever swam in the ocean in the pouring rain? Started the spring break on a Florida beach with millions of others. 6 x6 inches.

Mudroom Closet painting

They don't have mud room's in Florida, but for 24 years the mudroom was an obsession and my nemesis. I wanted one when I didn't have one, and then worried to control the chaos when I did have one!
Spring break in March coincides with mud season up north. The wind, which hurtles through any open door like an air vaccuum chamber will play havoc with your utility bill, but it can also blow a warm wind to raise the winter doldrums. You have to dress and shed in layers. And you must anticipate proper footwear for walking in glue like ice and quicksand.

Using the word prompt: "front door", I came up with this painting. My "front door "today- with out the mud, pets, the sons or their sports equipment- is much too boring to paint! This mudroom is perfectly organized, with an open door to let in the fresh air...
6 x6 inches

They can barely paint a pear but

they want to paint a face!
Two minute demo in class... 6 x 6 inches

The impetus for many a work of art is to depict the human face. We watch ourselves in others and tell our story through the face. The placement and symmetrical design of facial features enthralls both the infant and the elderly. Working with just the elements of painting- strong contrasts in color and intense shadows can illuminate any form and actually makes the rendition easier. (It works for a pear too).

small fuschia palm tree landscape

My favorite color, like a "daily special", changes everyday- but lately it has more than not stayed Fuschia.

It comes in small doses, like this 6 x 6 inch painting. It's the color of my toenail polish, the math teacher next door's sweater, the nurse's lipstick. It's everywhere in small doses, so why not the whole tree? All the trees?

6 x 6 inches.

spring break can't come soon enough

Like this alligator, it's knocking at the door!

view out the #classroom window

It's spikey in the #artroom both inside and out.

Michael starts a poem:

whenever I look out a window in drift
I see you
when looking through the window in dream
I look for you...

(I didn't ask his permission to print it, but I wanted to share it because it makes me smile)

acrylic on paper 6 x 6 inches
Part of the word prompt and series limited to only the students left over paint paletes.

blues

Another day in paradise. Got darn breezy and had to wear a sweater today! (ndp)