Getting ready for the Open Art Studio Tour!

My calendar has finally cleared up enough to allow me to start focusing on getting my personal studio ready for our 2nd Annual Open "Art Studio" Tour being held on Saturday, April 17 here in Summerville.  5 of us artists from Art Central Gallery and our potter are opening our personal studios to the public (pottery firing demonstrations will be held at 11am and 3pm!).  This is our annual fundraiser for "Meals on Wheels of Summerville"...we are selling tickets to the public ($15 in advance or $20 at the door).  This ticket gains you entrance to all the studios where you will meet the artists and see not only where we create, but what is currently on our drawing boards.  You'll be served light refreshments at each location and you're going to leave with a better appreciation for how we approach our work.  We encourage you to tell your friends about this event so that we can raise as much money as possible for Meals on Wheels.  Our favorite name for this event is "Art on Wheels!" ...your ticket is actually a map showing all the open studio locations which are all located in Summerville.  Call Art Central Gallery to buy your tickets with a credit card today (843-871-0297). 

Comments from last year's attendees:

"The artists were open to questions and showed their techniques. I thoroughly enjoyed the Silver Pail Pottery’s demonstration."

"I’ll be getting extra tickets for my friends. The fact that it went to Meals On Wheels of Summerville is wonderful!"

"My husband and I were seriously interested in the art and the accomplishments of the artists.   Loved the openness, the friendliness, the one-on-one...this made our tour very enjoyable."

Flowertown Festival in Summerville, SC

Come see me at the Flowertown Festival in Summerville this weekend!
Fri & Sat:  9am-5pm
Sunday:    9am-4pm
Location of my booth:  On the paved parking lot next to the tennis courts and the Cuthbert Center
(corner of Main St. & 5th Avenue).  Booth number is G6.

Update on class painting

Initial wash (steps 1 & 2 below) and then the result of the first wash (or sometimes called a "glaze").  I usually always start this way and progress to darker glazes and more detail.  You can't focus just on one section of the painting...you've got to move around and cover the whole page before you know what to do next. 

This is actually a painting I've painted before (about 3-4 yrs ago?) and I'm forcing myself not to look at pictures of the first one.  Normally, if I re-do a scene, I'll want to make it look entirely differently than the first one, but because this is for a class, I want to give the students the experience of learning solid techniques that they can incorporate into their own memory banks...subsequent steps will be reflected in future blog updates.

Watercolor class tonight

Time for our new set of watercolor classes to start tonight!  We're going to focus on subjects such as this photo of a Charleston garden.  We don't want the background to fight the ironwork up close, so we're going to paint it much looser and allow the iron to play the leading role.  I'll post updates on our progress soon.

Studio visitor?

One of my cats, Squirtie, found this very scared little anole in my studio.  Ray was out of town so I had to save the critter by myself (Squirtie had other plans in mind)!  I picked him up by the tail (maybe it was a "her"?) and, lo & behold, he held super-still the whole time I carried him to the downstairs back door!  Even when I "deposited" him on the porch, he sat there and did not move a muscle, pretending to be "unnoticed". 

Suggestions for Paintings?

Want to get involved in what I paint??  Send me "words" which hopefully will inspire me to create a painting as a result!  At a future showing, I will display these paintings!  These words can be anything!  A mood.  A place.  A verb.  You get to choose!  (then I get to choose!).  You can email me at helenKbeacham@gmail.com (remember to insert the K in the middle).

Comments about my textured acrylics workshop....

No, I'm not that short!  (I was kneeling down at this point, for some reason...)
Today is the day after my workshop...I just sat down to read through feedback given to me by my students (on a Survey I asked them to fill out), and I'm blown away.  That's what makes it so gratifying to teach.  I hope you all keep on using what you learned this week!  Keep me posted on new work created with this technique, ok?

A few more pics from my workshop

I stayed at the Isle of Palms during the workshop that I just gave and this was the view from our sunroom one evening!

This was me, freezing my first day of the workshop...but hey...if you're going to be on the beach, why not walk it?!

Can you feel the chill in the air?  This is the South!  Where's our warm weather going to come back?

 

This little guy didn't mind the cold...want to play???  My mommy and daddy are tired of throwing the ball for me...will you?

This is the house we rented for our stay at the Isle of Palms.  I always feel like I've just come from a mini-vacation when I spend time at the ocean.  It's good for the soul (even if it was freezing cold!).  Maybe next time the weather will cooperate better (I know this picture looks like it was warm...but trust me, it wasn't!)  All the more reason to stay inside and paint some more!

Acrylics workshop is over!

 

Well, our long-awaited acrylics/mixed media workshop has come and gone!  My students learned a new technique and some painted on large canvases for the very first time (using scary big brushes, no less!).  It was a freeing-up of the spirit and a realization that there is life outside of our proverbial comfort zone!  I arrived home this afternoon and already miss my old friends and the new ones I've made this week.  See you next time around!