artist in residence

It's like art camp over at my mom's house.

I love it.

 

Coloring in Jojo's 'Plan B" studio, aka the camp trailer.

Finger painting and mixing colors in Jojo's back yard.

Taking it to the bank

In an effort to encourage potty training, I had O paint his car bank the other day.

Every time he goes on the potty he gets a coin.

On the days he is at school, if he stays dry all day, he gets two coins to put in the bank that night.

I am using it as a way to

 

a) avoid the candy bribes for potty use,

 

b) learn the different names of the coins and how much each is worth,

 

c) and mix things up a bit to keep his motivation going.

He really is doing quite well with the whole thing.

He does have accidents, but he also insists some nights to go to bed without a pull-up or a diaper on,
"Just my undies, Mom".

Number two seems to be more tricky to get him to do on the potty for some reason. I was reading that boy have a harder time because they have to learn two different methods in the bathroom unlike girls who just sit to do all their business.

Maybe it's because peeing on a tree is fun and easy (yes, we are those parents)
pooing is sort of scary with the threat of falling in the bowl.

I am really proud of my little man for the progress we are making on this milestone achievement.

I am also really excited to not have two kids in diapers!

Reno is Artown!

Artown opened last night- just  a few sights from the afternoon.

This is such a wonderful part of the summer here in town. It is the sixteenth year Artown has been around and each year is full of so many awesome artists of all kinds.

I am glad I had the chance to make it down for the opening event yesterday afternoon and evening.

I was let out of work early (more about work later, it's a little crazy right now and I am off for two weeks until the dust settles.)

I met my friend Lisa and her two boys along with O.

 (Fifi had just fallen asleep at daycare, so I opted to leave her there to rest.

It was a fun date for O and I)

The sidewalk chalk was a huge hit with the boys.

There was a mural you could help to paint.

Bubbles to blow and catch.

The Discovery Museum (opening in mid September) was there with t-shirts for the kids to color.


There were also several other groups with activities like making recycled milk carton pinwheel flowers, shakers, and newspaper hats.

All of these things were in preparation for the 7pm 'parade' from McKinnely Art's Center to Wingfield Park- music provided by the March Fourth Marching Band.

We marched along, but O was a tad freaked out by all the people and loud

(how can a kid who is so loud himself, not like loud? I don't get it.)

Needless to say my camera was in my bag while we followed along with all the excitement.

To see the fun click on this link and then scroll to the bottom of the page for a video.

Let art rule!!!

blue and yellow make...

I have been wanting to get the paints out for MrO. for a very long time now. Since Little girl was sleeping and the weather seemed perfect for just a diaper and some paint, I got out the big sheets of paper and let him loose on the back patio.

The first dip. He wasn't quite sure he wanted to get his hands dirty.

Making his mark on the paper (doesn't it look like he is explaining his work here?)

Moving the paints around the work area, this was almost as much fun as painting for him it seemed.

It was all about the swirls and circles on this piece of work, he also worked only along the edges of the paper. So interesting to watch his process while he painted.

Making a mess and really getting into your art is where it's at.

art

I have been debating as to whether or not I should post these final set of pictures or not yet. Mostly because I haven't gotten my art work photographed from the trip and I felt like they would most logically be included in this post. However, I really love the way these came out and want to share- and I just haven't had the time to finish/fix the paintings that I started while down in Belmont.

A little bit about our teacher. Frances used to teach art at the high school level. She then began offering in-service classes to teachers during the summer. That is how my mom found out about the class and began taking it the first year Frances offered the course. These days, the class is more for fun. With a little bit more relaxed schedule and no one is taking it for cred. In the beginning it was all about water color and painting things that we found around town. Frances has since switched her work to focus on abstract art and using acrylics. She has started to mingle the real with the abstract again (just this past year), in her words, she has a strong connection to the cowboys and desert landscapes that originally inspired her and wanted to pull that inspiration back in to her paintings.

Frances, also known as Francheskaa, spends her winters as a snowbird down south in Arizona and then comes back up to Belmont, Nevada for the summer months. She shows her work in galleries in both areas and has work published in books and magazines. She is a true joy to be around and has a personality that will set you at ease. When she critics your work she always finds something you can improve upon as well as something that she really loves about the painting, no matter how craptastic it might be...

This year we really focused on form and function. Starting off the week using black and white and shades of gray that we mixed (totally reminding me of old school photography class where we only used black and white film to capture our world so we could fully understand contrast, values, and things like texture, lines, movement etc) and discussing things like large, medium and small shapes, overlapping, open and closed shapes, loops and piercing, transparency, creating depth using shapes and overlapping, pull and push of light and dark, and textures (using things like bubble wrap, corrugated cardboard, and tissue paper).

We moved into using color on the 3rd day and really worked on mixing color using primary, secondary and complimentary colors to make your painting "sing" how utilizing a couple of colors (either those that are complimentary to noe another or two primary and thier secondary or two secondary and the middle primary). I love pulling out that color wheel and making our own was a good exercise, even if you did learn it back in 2nd grade! This part was something I had struggled with in the past and feel like I had a huge breakthrough with this year. I also realized that not being stingy with the paint really helps and that I need a good set of brushes if I want to make myself really comfortable.

We had a wonderful group of artist this year and instead of meeting in the church to paint we set up shop at Francess cabin (look at that light!) After class each night we would potluck our food together and sit outside to eat, chat and enjoy each other's company.

I had a wonderful time watching the shadows grow across the landscape and listening to the stories of local history be told over desert and glasses of wine.

a boy, a piano

A blessing...

This beautiful belly (which I have photographed before) is full of baby once again. I was honored to be a part of the blessing yesterday.



If you are interested in having any henna work done please contact me and I can put you in contact with Kim, the artist.She does more then just bellies and was recently featured in the Reno News and Review doing a bridal blessing. As you can see, her work is beautiful. And if you are interested in documenting the amazing artistic process,I would be happy to tag along and take pictures!