Classes at Michaels Arts and Crafts

I'm teaching fine art classes at Michaels in Winter Park, Florida.  On Sunday, March 25, is the last floral project (Magnolia) for the next few months.  Next month will be all waterscape themes.  (They call them Seascapes officially, but the projects scheduled for April are mostly water-themed.

It took awhile to get back to teaching at Michaels again.  I was a fine art instructor a few years ago but they temporarily stopped classes.  Now, I am a Certified Grumbacher Acrylic Instructor which is required before anyone can teach fine art at any Michaels store.

If you would like to see an example of this coming Sunday's project you can see it on my Tumblr site.  I post all my class projects there and everything else here (including notifications of upcoming classes, open house events, etc.)

In the next two weeks I will be activating an email newsletter.  And for my students, future students and anyone else interested in learning to create art I've started an online magazine (free) for your viewing and educational pleasure.  It's called "The Art of Creating Art" and contains all sorts of constantly updated news, information and links on how to paint and draw in all sorts of mediums.

Enjoy and happy creating!

Newest Completed Works

This past summer and fall, I completed one oil painting and one pencil drawing.  The pencil drawing was a commission of one of the horses at Freedom Ride named Ivan.  (When I took a snapshot of the drawing I didn't realize I'd caught some glare on his shiny nose!)

The poem says:

Ride upon the white
horse and a sense of
peace will come; for
the white horse is an
angel with wings
disguised and soon you
will ride as one.  Anon

Pencil is my favorite medium for drawing horses.

The oil painting was done via a reference photo as a starting point.  I originally thought the background was going to be very dark.  However, as happens so many times while painting, it decided it wanted to be a lighter picture.

If you happen to be interested in buying this painting it is available unframed.
 

Create TV: List of Painting Shows on Public Television

Here's a list of just the painting shows as of December 5, 2012.  If anyone notices additional ones please let me know and I'll add them to this list.

• Beauty of Oil Painting
• Best of Simply Painting: Across Europe
• The Best of The Joy of Painting: Bob Ross
• Gary Spetz's Painting Wild Places! with Watercolors
• Gary Spetz's Watercolor Quest
• The Grand View
• Jerry Yarnell School of Fine Art
• Landscapes Through Time with David Dunlop
• One-Stroke Painting with Donna Dewberry
• Painting with Paulson
• Passport and Palette
• Scheewe Art Workshop
• Simply Painting
• Your Brush with Nature

Book Review Apples for Cheyenne

Rachel is a little girl with autism.  The story is about one of her weekly visits to the barn where Cheyenne lives.  He is one of the therapy horses.

This is a wonderful book for both able-bodied children and those with special needs.  It is a nice way to teach those who do not understand autism  about the way autistic children perceive the world.  Both the author and illustrator of this book are familiar with autism as one has a son with autism and the other has autism.

I got a free copy of this charming book from a friend of mine because he knows I love horses and that I work with/for therapy horses once a week at Freedom Ride.  It was written by Elizabeth King Gerlach and illustrated by Kim Miller.

If you would like to purchase a copy of this book I have provided links to it at both Barnes and Noble and Amazon for your convenience.  I am not associated in any way whatsoever with either company except as a fellow customer.  Happy reading!

Barnes and Noble

Amazon

General Colin Powell at Learning 2012

Due to a lack of internet access during his speech and chat with Elliott Maise, I am typing up this synopsis with lots of quotes.  I *would* have tweeted most of these if I'd been able.  Please also make sure to check out #lrn2012 on Twitter to see all the tweets from this and other sessions at Learning 2012.

On conferences like Learning 2012:  "It's important for humans to get together."

The military was the first to use technology for learning.  It was more efficient and saved money.

"Teams are what gets the work done."

General Colin Powell said that in all his 35 years in the military, (I hope I got that right!) he spent 6 of them in school.  Many companies do not recognize the importance of investing in "broadening the perspective of their leaders."

He then told a great story about motivation which included a rubber duck and a rubber chicken and how he used the chicken as a motivation tool in a training class one time.  lol

"It's all about motivating and inspiring people to learn."

He described how he handled the transition from being the Secretary of State one moment to not being the Secretary of State literally overnight.  The solution, if you are over 70, is to buy a Corvette.

He stated that he "was born analog."  Today, his grandchildren help him keep up-to-date on technology.  He said that technology "knocked down all the boundaries."

On technology he says, "The fun part of my life is seeing what's coming next."

"The world is moving from calendar to transactional thinking."

When training you must "change the software and then change the brainware."

Regarding education today, he said that it begins "in a mother's arms."  In the onstage chat with Elliott Maise he said that the "sense of expectation is not being passed down" anymore.  "They need to know they are not expected to fail."  He continued by saying that he has also noticed there is no longer a "sense of shame on the family" when a child does not live up to expectations.  Things were very different when he was growing up.

"It isn't where you start in life.  It's where you end up."

"Your past is not your future.  Your present is not your future."

In the military he was taught to do the following to be an effective leader:

• State a clear purpose that will make a better society.  This is different than a mission.
• "Take care of the troops.  Train them.  If you don't teach them you're a lousy leader."
• Recognize performance.  He writes (in pencil or pen) notes to people on small cards that cost 10 cents.  Simple things like this do not take a lot of time or money.  Yet they can mean so much to the recipient.

A sergeant at Ft. Benning once told him that "you know you're good if your troops will follow you out of curiosity."  Even if it's just to see how you take care of the situation.

On the 9/11 attacks he stated that "one thing no terrorist can do ... is change who we are."

"You've got to have a sense of optimism in our country and the world."  Optimism "is one of the most important traits of leadership."

On the topic of promoting leaders, he said that "performance alone is not a sufficient measurement.  It's a start, but "you have to look at potential."  What is that person learning and doing to improve him or herself?  Do they have "an agility of thinking?"  Do they have the "emotional and mental stability to proceed to the next level?"

On the topic of collaboration, he said that you must convince your team that collaboration is "in their best interest and yours."  It is important.  When speaking with others, he always had a round table in his office and did not wear his jacket "with all that stuff on it."  He just wore a simple black turtle neck sweater.  However, once he'd made a decision it became your decision, too.  "You have to decide what you are going to do and execute."

Also, it is important to have contingency "guys" and "always be in a do loop."  Never be a tyrannical leader.

Well, that's all I got.  I hope you enjoyed it and learned at least one new thing.

Thank you for reading!

Plein Air Painting at Langford Park Sat. Mar. 19

The azaleas are blooming! Dickson Azalea Park is directly across the street.  I'll probably be there between 9-10 am along with Sy Rosefelt painting en plein air.  Here's a map and more info if you would like to join us or would just like to enjoy a day in a beautiful park or two.

Here's a picture of Sy Rosefelt painting at the docks behind the Cornell Museum of Art on the campus of Rollins College in Orlando, Florida.  We were there with Rudy Drapiza and Paul Peters painting en plein air.  Rudy, Sy and I stayed until dark.  I got one evening painting done.  No pic of it yet so I thought I'd post this one in the meantime.  It was taken with the camera on my old phone.  It kinda looks like an old polaroid picture, doesn't it?

As darkness enfolded us Sy and Rudy told me a story about how one time when they were painting at a dock in Sanford, the wind blew Sy's palette with all his paint into the water!  He said that "it sank like a stone."  Rudy valiantly tried to rescue it but was smart enough to test the water first with a very long pole to see if he could walk out into the water to retrieve it.  The pole kept going down and down and down and they said it must have been at least 20 feet deep right off shore.  No rescue was possible.

Once a week I've also been doing some life drawing where artists paint or draw from a live model at the Crealde School of Fine Art in Winter Park, Florida.  I'll post some *discreet* pictures of those later as the models pose nude and I wouldn't want to offend anyone!

And I'm working on a couple of commissions of horse portraits for two people at Brookmore Farms.  I just have a sketch right now that I need to send to the client's for approval.  That's one great thing about the internet and art these days that I like.  Back "in the old days" one had to either schedule and meet in person or mail photos via snail mail *or* (gasp) complete the entire portrait, meet the client with the finished product and hold your breath as it was unveiled before them for the first time!  That was very nerve wracking!  Now it is less so as I know the pose, leg and head positions are already approved.

With my trusty old camera phone I hope to post more often to this blog which gets automatically posted to my FB fan page at www.tinyurl.com/karensfanpage.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Freedom Ride at 4H Show April 2010

Video of the Freedom Ride horses, riders and volunteers at a 4H show.

Cavallo at Freedom Ride March 2010

Short video - show got rained out.

Wekiva Invitational Plein Air Paint Out 2010

On the last day of the paint out I went to Wekiva Island to see some artists at work and look at all the paintings they did over the week-long event.

Ken Austin Workshop March 2010

I attended my first watercolor workshop held by the Central Florida Watercolor Society last week. Ken Austin is an awesome artist! This class re-awoke the things I learned in my design courses years ago in college!

Pet Portraits

I was contacted recently via email to do a portrait of three pets, a dog and two cats, all on one sheet. It was specified to do the portrait in watercolor so I got right down to work! Below are two pictures. One is of the work in progress about half-way done and the next one is completed!

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