Beaches and Baseball

I'm sending you puffy seashell hearts today.   Yep.  Billy, Kids, My Mom, Me and like 24 of our close peeps are with us.  What?  We are here for the Little League World Series!!  Playing ball at crazy hours.  Eating junk food.  Drinking LOTS of cold cheap beer(not at the ball fields of course) and soaking in the sun.  And loving every minute of this vacation.  We can be nothing but flexible.  We can not have set dinner hours. We have no bedtime.  What we do have is each other, a load of kids, bats and gloves ready to play with all their hearts.  Puffy hearts that is.  See you next week!!!

Her Painted Word

Do you ever find yourself sitting at the computer in front of an artist's piece you absolutely can NOT take your eyes off of?  Well, that was me, a few weeks ago in this amazing artist's etsy shop.....

Danielle Fraser and I met during Flying Lessons, I think, right Danielle?  Anyhoo, I find myself not being the best blog hopper and keeperupper with what's going on out in cyberworld.  Yes, I stay in the Jenni bubble.  Not so good.  If I want people to see me, I have to be an active participant in the procedure.  I know this.
So, this summer I decided it was time to get out of the bubble.  While in twitter recently I saw Danielle's adorable profile picture (yes, that is how I judge peeking into your twitter file) and remembered her.  But her work has evolved over the year since we first met.  She always made lovely spiritual paintings of young women, but before they had very different eyes.  Now she's painting what I call soulful eyes.  Like you could see for miles in the eyes of these women.  I was smitten I tell ya.  And had to have one.  Like I said, I stared for a long spell.  Totally smitten with her total collage/paint technique.  The eyelids are collage!  Puffy heart.

I particularly loved the ones that referenced the mother-daughter, since I have one of those by my side.  But Danielle's figures tend to have dark hair, like hers.  So I convo'd her and asked if she could paint over the dark hair by chance.  She politely replied no, that is was varnished.  Hmmm...Well then could you make me a custom one?  Low and behold this girl got my painting ready in like a week!  She lives in Canada where come to find out they are in the middle of a postal delivery crisis.  Could you imagine if our US Post office went on strike????  We'd all be loosing more than sales that's for sure!

So here are the lovelies that came in my package.  I freaked out over the one above, the mother with all the birds on her arms.  Man, I love that painting!!!!  I have it posted on my bookcase for inspiration.  So she has a lovely website, blog where she tells the tale of living an artful life, etsy shop and more!!  You must pop over and tell her hi!  And tell her Jenni sent you. 

Pieces of Me...Building Relationships

I've been dreaming since starting this journey as a full-time artist of getting my work past these studio walls.  The first door has finally opened on that dream!  Wooohoooo!!!  Just look where my art has landed!  On POM tees!  Pieces of Me brand is owned by the adorable Julia Brown.  You can not help but gravitate towards her because she radiates so brightly. 

This whole experience has been a bit surreal.  Meeting her at Serenbe May Day, feeling totally connected to her and she to I, getting the call, getting the art ready, and getting the tees made in time for the Dallas and Denver shows.  It has been a whirlwind of a summer indeed!!

I am in love with the whole idea of my art being on these tees.  My favorite outfit to wear:  a great pair of jeans ( Lucky Jeans always) and a fabulous tee.  That's me.  So Julia....THANK YOU for getting me out there into the world and helping me to see that I can dream BIG!

I am not sure when these will be in my etsy shop and at The Vintage-Flea, but I'll be sure to let you know.  If you aren't on Facebook, you can see my business page here or Pieces of Me page here.  You do not have to have a profile to see the fun going on in both business pages!! 

Art Camp Fun

Monday I hosted my first camp of the summer season.  Boy, did we make some amazing work!!  First up, mini camper paintings.....I wonder what inspired this idea?  hmmmmm.....These are acrylic paintings on canvas boards.

 We also painted with watercolors on paper puppies with bugs on their noses.  Man, these are stink'n cute!!

The main project was a macaw painting on 11x14 wrapped canvas with acrylic paints.  We used all sorts of fun materials to texture the background from bubble wrap, doilies, packing peanuts and leaf masks.  The kids did an amazing job of layering the backgrounds with these tools!  And then the bird itself, geesh they surprised me with their talents.  And I should tell you they were ages 7-11.  Yeah.  I know.  Talent.

My next camp is July 18-20t.  We will be packing in the painting, ceramics and sculpture projects these 3 days.  If you live in the area, give me a call!!  I'd love to have your child join me!

Savannah and Back

Savannah and back in 4 days.  With 23 other people.  17 of which were under the age of 10.  Yes, 10 years of age is what I wrote.  It was truly an amazing trip.  Amazing. In the previous post I said I was really not looking forward to the trip, and honestly it was for selfish reasons. But over the course of the 4 days I watched in wonder as these special little girls became Girl Scouts, no longer Brownies.  We exposed these girls to things they may never be exposed to ever again in their lifetime.  The activities chosen were not over the top, but meaningful.  They visited the birthplace of Girl Scouts.  They got to ride a trolley car, a ferry boat, a river boat, and a horse drawn carriage.  They ate Moroccan food with their hands while watching belly dancers.  They ferried across the Savnnah river and back with the moonlight in their eyes. They visited a graveyard and threw pennies on graves for good luck.  They rode a boat on the Bull River while dolphins waved hello.  Were dropped off by this boat to a deserted island in the middle of the ocean and spent a day  with nothing but squeals of complete joy in the water and sand.  They took a carriage drawn ghost tour through the 2nd most haunted city in the USA.  They climbed 178 stairs to the top of the Tybee Island light house.  They swam in the Atlantic Ocean til dark.  They ate seafood at a shack with 17 of their best friends while the salt spray tangled their hair.  They visited Outland center and got to pet a rather robust opossum.  And they built a file of memories to last a lifetime in their sweet little heads.  And so did I.

 I didn't take my Canon along this trip, just my Ipad, and the Instagram app.  These are my favorites I took on the trip by far.  There is something magical in that city.  And calming to my heart.  I am back rested, yes...crazy right?  And not as anxious about some things that are around the corner.  Although I do have HUGE things going on.  Did you see my facebook message????   For today, I've finished up and awesome art camp, am about to shut down the computer and head out with the kids.  Not sure where yet.  But that's not so important today.  Just the being together is.  See ya back later in the week where I shed light on the FB news. 



Girl Scouts and Savannah

Did you know that Savannah, Georgia was the birthplace of Girl Scouts?  So guess where I am right this second?  Yep.  In Savannah with Mailey's Girl Scout Troop.  We've got 24 with us.   I wasn't particularly looking forward to this trip, I have to be honest.  Lots of girls to keep up with, a leader that wigs out a bit about keeping up with those lots of girls, and lots of girls without Mommies, MILES from home.  They are ages 8-10 by the way.  I said they were really too young to enjoy and appreciate this trip.  We should wait.  I was out voted.  Sigh.  So be thinking about me, and the 23 others with me.  That we return safely on Sunday....and that I have a little better attitude.  I know it's going to be fun, I LOVE Savannah.  And we are doing some really cool stuff.  (I'm writing this before I go BTW, love that feature in blogger)  Like a Ghost Carriage tour, dinner at a belly dancing place, shark tooth hunt on Bull River, touring the Juliette Gordon Low House (founder of Girl Scouting), and more.  So yes, we are going to enjoy ourselves.  I'm going to focus on making this a memorable trip for Mailey so that years from now she still says to me, "Mom, remember when I was 9 and we went to Savannah with troop 10322?"  "Yes Mailey, I do"

Studio Assistants

Let me introduce you to the newest widdle studio assistant:  Graham.  She weighed in at the vet a whopping 12ounces, not even a pound yet.  Yep.  She's widdle all right.  And cries a LOT.  Figuring out each cry has not been easy.  But she loves her horse stuffed animal, her nursing milk, and humans.  She really loves humans.  And wants to love Lily, but Lily is not too kosher with that...yet.  She walks towards Lily all sad faced and crying and Lily just runs away.  I think Graham will break her eventually.  When she stops crying all the time.  Anyhoo....I was working on my first Get Your Paint on assignment here and of course Lily is always on my left side.  Graham got front and center position.  I love my studio.  And all it's 4-legged help.