Just Plain Crabby

Not  me.

 The artwork.

Yet another catch-up post.

This one is from the beginning of the Summer. 

School started today in the Atlanta area even though it's just the beginning of August.
 Some see the start of school as the end of Summer. Not me.
I will hold on to Summer until the bitter end.
So this beachy, crabby project fits the bill.

This was a guided project in that we all did our outline work together 

and then we got creative and gave our crabby guy some serious personality.

This is the best kind of project.

 After the basic shapes are down the artists get busy adding color and texture.

 We talk about color and tools and they get so into the painting process. 

They just paint and chat and it is so fun to be in a room full of creative children. 

Aren't they awesome and fun?? 

Love the polka dot water.

And this guy?? He cracks me up.

 I can just see him shifting his eyes from side to side before he takes off down the beach.

Actually, it's hard to be crabby when you are laughing at these fun paintings!!

Daisies Are The Happiest Flowers

Do you know what movie that's from??

 I love Meg Ryan and I agree.

 I love cheerful, roadside daisies.

 I also loved, loved the show "Please Don't Eat the Daisies" when I was young.

 ( That'll date me, for sure.)

Someone dropped off an unwanted canvas - a large one. Yay!!

I spent a couple of cold, wintry afternoons painting a giant stylized daisy on the canvas.

It was red, so first thing - a turquoise base coat.

Then some basic shapes to create a stylized daisy.

 ( This is what I use my kitchen tools for!)

Outline in black.

My go- to Sherwin Williams paints.

Just filling in with cheerful daisy-ish colors.

 This color is Pickle.

 I want to have the job where I sit around looking at fabulous colors 

and thinking up their names.

SW, call me. I'm available.

Someone at church gave me the canvas so back to church it went.

The next daisy inspired project was painted at

 a little art camp with my favorite 4 and 5 year olds.

They made these canvases for their Moms :)

Then at the beginning of the Summer the stylized daisy painting

 inspired a project at another art camp.

The artists ranged in age from kindergarten to 4th grade 

and they created some pretty amazing line work.

Again, each one is so unique.

They definitely got creative with their colorways.

Aren't these fun? Didn't they turn out great?

I like them better than mine!

I Love Paintsticks.

I love paintsticks.

True story.

Sounds silly but I have a zillion projects with paintsticks.

I almost hate to use them to stir paint :)

A while back I had a super fun art day with a group of 4th and 5th grade girls. 

I had lots of creative activities planned but I decided to cover the basics before 

I turned them loose with a bunch of exciting supplies. 

We used a paintstick to learn about the spectrum and color mixing.

This may seem remedial to you for 4th and 5th graders but a few years ago I saw an adult do a little segment on Good Morning America

 and she said the primary colors were red, yellow, blue and green.

Maybe she was nervous but I never got over it :)

So I run through a color lesson in a variety of fun ways when I have an art activity with children. 

A little paint, a little color mixing fun and ... ta-da! Rainbow Sticks!!

** My nice Sherwin Williams guy, Todd, gives me paintsticks for the children to use :)

Whole Lotta Burlap

In addition to painting on furniture,

a "whole lotta burlap paintin' been goin' on."

We started waaaay back with hearts for Valentine's Day.

We got "stripey" (cause I will stripe pretty much anything.)

Then I decided to add an initial

and it would make the heart work for a little longer than just Feb. 14th.

Next up, a burlap heart class. 

They always turn out so differently but each one is so cute!

I love the black and white stripes in the back. This lady drove 2 hours to attend a class that started at 9 am on a Saturday morning. And then she was super creative.

Impressive.

Well, the ladies wanted to make something Springy that wasn't strictly "Easter-y."

So cute carrots it is!

They all turned out so well - more pictures are on madebymolliesmom on Instagram.

Vegetables were followed by fruit.

In case you have not noticed, I use Sherwin Williams Color To Go to paint my burlap door hangers.

 Actually, it's my favorite paint for canvases, too.

I have a SW fan deck in my car and in my studio. All those colors. So inspirational.

(They do not pay me to say this, it's just my favorite paint.)

I actually got a burlap door hanger on my own door this Summer!!

College Girl was in town so she came along to class and 

painted a watermelon for a friend who couldn't make it.

Ms. Dawn this fruit's for you.

Again, a lot of variation but each one turns out great.

 We had to offer the watermelon class twice so this time College Girl decided to paint a burlap door hanger for her place. 
Not being a fan of watermelon as art or food she decided to go with a peach!

 As we say in the South, It turned out stinking cute!!

The gray checkerboard border makes it for me (all her idea!!)

Before long we will be painting owls (but in Fall-ish colors) or candy corn!
As crazy as that seems ... school starts here on Monday. In August. And Hobby Lobby has already put out Halloween and Christmas items. Yikes!!

That means Summer is pretty much over as far as our mindset goes - just not as far as the hot weather  goes.

I've Been Painting Furniture Non-Stop

I've been painting furniture during my blogging hiatus.
 A lot of furniture.
 A lot.
Some for College Girl's new place and some for clients.

College Girl wanted a gigantic white table in her place and she had plenty  of room. We found this drop leaf table in a new Thrift Shop near us about a week after she moved. We jumped on it - it was a steal. I started painting it white in my freezing basement during one of Atlanta's snow events. BRRRR.

Next up. Four chairs for the table. CG wanted them painted in 4 colors off of the same SW strip so they were an ombre when all around the table. They have fabulous SW names like Spa and Aquarium. It was fun to do 4 different colors. Chair painting took over the kitchen during the next snow event. I was over freezing in my basement.

Here they are lined up dark to light with the seats all recovered.
 They turned out soooo cute. She loves them.

A little $5.00 thrift store side table jazzed up with a two-tone paint job.
The shades of gray were left from our ombre paint job on two IKEA dressers that CG used in a previous apartment. We try to choose versatile pieces so that they can move with her for years to come. These can easily be repainted or have a hardware change in the future and be used in any room of the house. I love this particular dresser and it's only about $70.00 and simple to put together. It's unfinished so you can do whatever you wish.

The iphone picture is grainy - the light in her closet is not that great but these dressers give her a ton of storage and organizational space. And they look pretty cute too.

Then someone gave me this very nice Broyhill end table that I decided to use for CG's new apartment. She wanted hot pink - I mean, when else can you do whatever you want and paint furniture hot pink but when you are young and single??

So, again to the kitchen with a project. It was too cold to work anywhere else this Winter and chili and soups only require a crockpot - thankfully!
She chose Sherwin Williams Eros Pink and it is fabulous in her space.

I have more furniture pictures but I'm actually headed out to paint furniture in a few so that's the photo overload for today. 
Two posts in two days. What???????