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2016 Year of Painting!

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web-DSC_0007Join us at Artful Endeavors on Sunday, Jan 3, 2016 to party and begin our new year of painting.  2p-5p, drop in.

Bring your family and friends, and a snack, and drop in for some socializing, a little painting, and some good snacks.  You can see samples of upcoming projects and pick up prep for our first classes of the year.

Bring a painting to show. We love to see each other’s work.

We’ll play with some Feather Tangle as you can see in our photo. Appropriate for all skill levels. This does come with a warning though, you won’t want to do just one. I have the supplies and some colorful new pens to share.

I’ll look forward to seeing you on Jan 3 to share our love for art and painting.

Liz

Looking a lot like Christmas?

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Well not really but it’s almost here anyway whether it looks like it or not.

As I think back over the past year there have been some very low spots, but also there are all of you. I appreciate all the support, caring, and being there from my students and friends.

I am wishing a wonderful holiday season to all of you and looking forward to another year of sharing.

Merry Christmas

My painting and John Gutcher’s imagination and design.

Acrylic Painting Club Session 3

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Register before Dec 1 for session 3 of the Acrylic Painting Club to be entered in our drawing for a wonderful Dorothy Dent original painting.

Join me at the Acrylic Painting Club for a year of learning. Session 3 includes 25 video classes from a group of terrific artists from around the world. My class is Summer Romance where you can learn to improve your side loading and blending skills while painting this fun design. You have a year from the time my video class is posted to learn from my video. I’ll repeat anything as many times as you would like. All you have to do is rewind me.

Summer Romance

Summer Romance

More details and register. Please use my link to give me credit for your interest. Thanks.

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Original Dorothy Dent painting.

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“I’ve got a story about that.”

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11253742_10153254406712898_3578189492983362431_nAnd he did, Mark Polomchak that is, have lots of stories, and fun techniques for us last weekend at our CADANC seminar at Artful Endeavors. Mark is a wonderfully engaging artist and teacher. For three days he shared his art with us, teaching all day and painting demos during lunch. What a treat.

116Everyone thoroughly enjoyed themselves and went home with completed paintings, many beautifully matted and framed by Ryan Wanke. You can’t ask more than that.  Except, maybe that it was Halloween!web-DSC_0443

Possibly … when Mark is teaching in our area next year… I can get him to come back to share with us again…. 12115645_10153254406792898_7860136487264084868_n 12196011_10153254406882898_508382118665538097_n 12208823_10153254406837898_5757398097712519890_nweb-DSC_0437 web-DSC_0435

I’m Back and Inspired!

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I’m back from business research/photo trip otherwise called vacation. We had a great time and I took lots of reference photos of waterfalls, water, clouds, and more. Now I’m inspired and ready to start painting something.

I’m here for classes to resume this week and we have lots happening in the next few weeks.
We’re working on the Dorothy Dent fall scene in our Wed classes, but have a workshop on this same design on Friday, 10-3p. If you have missed it let me know quickly so we can get you into the Fri workshop.

web-Autumn-Dorothy-Dent-finThen on Saturday is our Pet Portrait class with lots of pet enthusiasts ready to work on portraits. I’m looking forward to seeing all the animals take shape. I’ve seen the photos to approve them and we have some terrific designs about to happen.

Halloween weekend Mark Polomchak is coming to teach for our chapter of the Society of Decorative Painters, CADANC. So it’s an exciting watercolor weekend planned. There are still a couple of seats for Sat and Sun available if you would like to join us. Mark is awesome and this will be my first opportunity to paint with him.

116And then Kathie George is here, Nov 16, 17, & 18 for our seminar! Kathie is always such fun and she is always introducing us to new techniques and products. What in the heck do we do with sanded paper? Kathie will show. There are still a few seats available if you can join us. There’s more information on the web site and you can register there also.

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Then we have more holiday painting coming up in Nov, a Santa, ornaments, watercolor, and silver! So plan to join us.
I’ll get the web site schedules updated this week so please check them for what’s happening before Christmas.

More later!
Liz

Here Kitty, Kitty

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Just finished my cat painting from our last pet portrait class. When I’m teaching I do demonstrate but don’t always get a chance to complete my painting. I’m usually circulating, helping each student as needed. This sometimes makes my own painting incomplete, even if I’ve finished demonstrating.

This weekend I decided that it was time to finished Annie’s portrait. It had been sitting around half painted long enough. Of course I almost completely painted it over again. I’m not always in the same “place” with my painting and want to update. And maybe I see something different or better.

I do like to paint colorful. I guess you can tell. And I think the turquoise is a wonderful accent color. Annie has beautiful big green eyes and I wanted to make sure they were the focus of my painting. She communicates so wonderfully with her eyes.

Anyway, here is Annie! And my husband recognized her!

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Flock of Chickadees

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Once a month our students want to work on watercolor skills. We started with specific techniques, not necessarily something to frame but to learn and prepare ourselves to take our upcoming watercolor workshops. And we have all greatly improved and are pleased with our growing skills.  The students are requiring me to learn more just to stay ahead of them and I’m enjoying the journey.

Our latest project was a Black Capped Chickadee in the style I learned from Susan Crouch. I was pleased with my painting and very pleased with my student’s efforts.

So from a proud teacher here are the student’s paintings.

Black Capped Chickadee, Artful Endeavors Students

Black Capped Chickadee

Stretching

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My students and I have been looking through old painting journals and books for projects to add to our fall schedule. I found a beautiful Jackie Shaw ribbon and mistletoe design in a Dec 2000 issue of Decorative Artist Workbook, some of you will remember them. It was a wonderful magazine back then and actually one of my first introductions to decorative painting back in the 1980’s. Anyway, back to the ribbon design.

web-Snow-kids-groupWhen I showed the design to the students the first reaction was “how beautiful”. When I asked if they would like to paint the design on an ornament, the next reaction was “it’s ribbon!!, oh, no! I can’t paint ribbon! It’s so difficult.”  “Well,” I said, “that’s the very reason that we need to paint this design then.”

web-Winter-ChickadeesStudents take painting classes to learn, to grow, and to stretch. Classes aren’t needed to paint something that you already know how to paint. There’s always something new to learn, something new to get excited about.  So let’s get uncomfortable, let’s stretch our skills. Let’s enjoy learning.

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Ho Ho and Howl-loween

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I’ve been busy developing the concepts, designing, and painting new classes for our Sept schedule. Of course lots of my inspirations come from our terrific students who are always wanting to learn and explore.  And who come up with challenging ideas.

Since the holiday season always comes upon us quickly our students have encouraged me to bring out the holiday designs.

We’ve started the Halloween painting with Midnight Howl, a spooky Shirley Wilson design. We’re painted this in one class and will begin it in Cary next Tue evening, Sept 8.  There’s still time to join us.

MIdnight Howl

Midnight Howl

And then there is always Santa!  Everyone get an opportunity to paint this whimsical fellow, a Shirley Wilson design also.  Shirley Wilson’s Star Santa

Shirley Wilson's Star Santa

Shirley Wilson’s Star Santa

Classes start:

Sept 16, Wed am in Raleigh, 10a-2p.

Sept 22. Tue, 6:15-8:15 in Cary

Oct 3, Sat, 10a-2p Raleigh.

And then there is my watercolor Black Capped Chickadee.  I’m learning more and more about watercolor and enjoying them very much. We’ve wanted to paint a bird in Susan Crouch style and here is my version. I was very pleased with this one.

Class starts Wed am, 10-2p, Raleigh.

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Our Floral Still Life intensive workshop is coming up soon, Sept 26 & 27 to be exact. If you haven’t registered yet. We’re almost full.

Liz Miller CDA

Liz Miller CDA

We love to have you join our Sept learning opportunities at Artful Endeavors. I’m learning so much and am excited about sharing with you.

Come join us!  Liz