Here It Is!

Here it is for those of you who have asked to paint your version of my Floral Still Life, (have to think of a better name for this painting).  This is an intensive study where we will concentrate on color harmony and creating a center of interest.

This has been one of my favorite paintings recently and popular with my students.  This began as a still life set up in my studio. My students and I brought elements to create a still life that we then photographed.  We set up our lighting and tried several compositions. In another post I’ll explain our photo booth.  I was inspired with this set up so I adjusted to create a pleasing composition and created my pattern. I’m excited about the results.

Liz Miller CDA

Liz Miller CDA

My Cary painters have asked to paint this and also our Tue am painters have it on their schedule.

You have some time to check your schedule and register. Plan to join us.  Seating will be limited so register early.

Liz

 

Flowers of a Different Color

Liz Miller CDA

Awhile back a few of us set up our photo booth, created a still life from items we brought to the studio, and photographed it.  From one of our set ups I created a design and began this painting. Students joined me and we made this class an intensive study. Each student adapted the design and created their own painting.

I thought you might like to see some of the completed floral still like paintings.  These are by our awesome students, Jean, Dianne, and Carol. Excellent painting!  I’m so pleased with their efforts. And we learned so…. much.

Jean S

Jean S

Dianne W

Dianne W

Carol B

Carol B

I’ve had others asking about this class. If you are interested, let me know. I’m considering teaching it in Cary if there is enough interest or possible a 2 day workshop. This would be a technique intensive workshop where the student will be making design decisions. As you can see, each painting differs.

Seminars Coming Up

2015 is an exciting year for seminars at Artful Endeavors.  Four seminars/workshops and all with exciting instructors coming to share their expertise with us.

Grace: Gail Schmidt

Grace: Gail Schmidt

ArtFling with Gail Schmidt and me is happening very soon, in a little over a week actually. We always have such fun when Gail is here, nice messy, creative fun. Get ready to laugh a lot and wear an apron.

Live; Liz Miller CDA

Live; Liz Miller CDA

 

Then our watercolor seminar with Susan Crouch is just at the end of May.  Susan is looking forward to sharing with us and she is such a wealth of information.  Our seminar is full, prep sheets have been sent out and we are ready to paint.

In July Ros Stallcup is here and again the seminar is full with enthusiastic painters. Participants have their preps and photos are posted. The projects this year are extra wonderful. I can’t decide which one I like best and maybe I don’t have to decide because I’ll just paint all of them.

You can see the photos on Ros seminar page on this web site.

Kathie George plans to be here with us in Nov. Check back for an update a little later.

 

It’s Here, News About ArtFling!

Gail and Liz are joining their creative forces once again for our Spring ArtFling 2015.

We’ll bring you this mixed media fun on May 1 & 2, Friday and Sat, 9a-5p, 2015 so mark your calendars and plan to join us.

We have more exciting new ideas for projects, always something different and a little good crazy.

This is our fifth ArtFling, each one more fun than the last with projects that are always exciting and definitely imaginative. Many of our participants return each time for more inspiration and always want to know when the next ArtFling is planned . There’s room for you to go on this art journey with us so reserve your seat now.

Live

Live

Grace: Gail Schmidt

Grace: Gail Schmidt

More information!  Register Now!

Ros Stallcup Seminar at Artful Endeavors 2015!

And it’s July 22 -25, 2015.

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Ros is coming back this summer to Artful Endeavors for 4 days of creativity with new paintings, designed for US! We’re the first to paint them.

Mark your calendar and plan to join us.  Registration is open!

We’re working on a seasonal theme this year.  Ros and I have discussed topics for the painting for each day, but it’s always exciting to see where Ros has gone with each design.  Projects usually arrive at the studio in April.

I’ll have more information on surfaces a little later.

Here are our starting ideas.

Wed: Spring gathering basket of flowers on sign board.

Thurs: Summer’s Old Boat, coastal scene. Canvas.

Fri: Fall still life with lots of our fall favorites; dried corn, apples, pumpkins… Sandwich board

Sat: Winter scene with gazebo in the snow on wood.

I’ll have registration information on the web site very soon.

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Let Fly With Us

Fling = let fly.  And we’ll let fly with paint and what ever else we find for creating at our Spring ArtFling with Gail Schmidt and myself.

This is our fifth ArtFling, each one more fun than the last with projects that are always exciting and definitely imaginative. Many of our participants have returned each time for more inspiration. There’s room for you to go on this art journey with us.

We’ll bring you this creative fun on May 1 & 2, Friday and Sat, 2015 so mark your calendars and plan to join us.

Let fly is also appropriate since wings is a theme in both of our paintings.

Grace

Grace

Gail’s painting, Grace, is graced with elegantly beautiful wings.

While my painting, Live, shows us a delicate butterfly on an allium flower with a lively background.

Live

Live

Check back for more details.

Plan to share our always lively, creative time this May.  Gail and I are excited and ready for some artful time together with you.

Liz

Spiffed Up and A Fresh Look

Did you received our latest news letter, Creatively Speaking, this week end? Yes, great. No? Then you can subscribe in the right hand column here on our blog.

I’ve had such a difficult time trying to get emails out this fall. Some of the email providers just won’t deliver emails from me.  Called me spam, imagine that. I’m still working on getting the email problem worked out, but, I have switched the news letter to a different format, using Mad Mimi. Don’t you love the name. So you should be able to receive our news that I’ll send out about once a month.  Watch for upcoming events, workshops, and juicy tips and techniques from my blog.

Chick-a-dee

Chick-a-dee A Lydia Steeves design

Meanwhile we’re finishing up our paintings for this year and making plans for 2015.  We’ve adjusted the schedule so be sure to look for the updates.

You’re may be finishing up ornaments so here is a finishing tip that I like to use.  I paint the edges of my ornaments with a Krylon Leafing Pen. This gives me a beautiful finish.  I can even create a border on the edge of my ornament if I like.  I’ve used the Krylon Pen to finish the edge of the chickadees.

To finish the Pheasant below I wiped the edges with DecoArt Metallic Lustre, Iced Espresso in this case. This add just the right touch for a finished look. This is especially nice if you have an embossed surface.

Pheasant painted by Liz Miller original by Veda Parsley

Pheasant painted by Liz Miller
original by Veda Parsley

Be sure to mark your calendar for our Welcome Back to Painting in 2015 party, Jan 4, 1p-4p. I’ll have more information for you a little later.

Liz

Just a last note:  You are on our email list because you requested to be there.  I don’t solicit emails from anywhere.   If you don’t want to receive our newsletter you can unsubscribe on the newsletter. When you mark something as spam you stop everyone on that email provider from receiving the emails, and they might want to be able to receive emails from me. So just unsubscribe. If you are getting emails from me that you don’t want to receive, let me know and I’ll be glad to remove you from the list. Thanks much.  Liz

 

Here’s Mountain Dog!

This sweet dog was laying in the mountain back road we were exploring on vacation and he was nice enough to let Rick take his photo.  You can just see him ask what we were doing on his road.web-8.5-x-8

In our Pet Portrait class I began painting the mountain dog as my sample. Here’s my progress so far. Starting with the focal area, always eyes and nose.

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It Was A Dog Day

Mostly dogs, thought a couple of cats showed up for our pet portrait class yesterday. And what fun we had. A terrific group of painters from Kernersville NC visited the studio yesterday, joined by some of our lovely local painters, to paint pets. Long hair, short hair, fluffy and sleek we painted pets.

web-20141023_135110 Are here is some of the terrific paintings from our students. And what a fun day.

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I’ll have photos to show of my painting in my next post so come back to see my progress.