ART GOES GREEN!

Well, here it is July 19th, 2009, and I haven't updated this blog since December. Some blogger I am! Lots happened since December, which I'll skip over and come up to date.

During a long bout with a bug and many days and nights on the couch, I developed a fun new "Green" craft, recycling plastic grocery bags into delightful decorative baskets! This month's (July's) theme for Artist Members is "Art Goes Green" in the Artists Guild Gallery, Vero Beach, (http://www.artistsguildgalleryverobeach.com/) so this was a very fitting contribution to that theme. The basket pictured above was my first attempt, and quite a learning process it was. It is made of plastic bags coiled and wrapped with raffia, joined in a circle and "coaxed" into a basket shape. Visible are the ginea hen feathers I wove into the basket, and it was finished off with a higher lip topped with a possum jaw bone handle. The second basket I created is embellished with ostritch feathers, and is of a finer quality in balance and symmetry, as I gained more experience in working with this unusual material. Next week I will teach the artists in the Artists Guild how to do this, and I believe this won't be the end of it. This craft is very clean and portable, requires minimal supplies (bags, raffia, needle, scissors), is very addictive and enjoyable, great exercize for the hands and fingers, and EXTREMELY GREEN, using over 75 bags per standard 8"x8" basket as pictured.

I am also displaying two of my latest oil paintings for your enjoyment, "Marilyn Monroe" and "Portico at Windsor." "Marilyn" started out as a demo for my students at Oak Harbor in Vero, which I mostly finished up at my favorite artists' weekly gathering place - the Sebastian River Art Club. "Portico at Windsor" also started out as a demo for a plein air painting day-long workshop I conducted at Windsor in Vero.