Art Camp-Two weeks of FUN!

I forgot to post last weeks camp fun! We went to the farm and painted roosters, watercolor horses, cow/bull collages and fingerprint ducks! It was a day that would have made Old MacDonald proud!
Today we hit the reptile unit. Oh, a classroom full of boys was a real treat! We made pet rock turtles, crocodile paintings, snakes, and geckos on cedar. It was a day to be squeamishly artistic!

Good-Bye to Junior

Mailey and Junior our pet frog.

William and Junior. Look at those jumping legs!

Let me introduce you to Junior. A frog. Yep. A frog. We raised this little guy from tadpole hood until now. He had a little goldfish bowl he swam around in and grew out of his icky tail into a full-fledged frog. It was quite a treat. I can't help but giggle a little thinking about the morning Billy woke up and found our cat Jack playing with jumping Junior in the hallway. This was our last day with dear junior. He was jumping out of the bowl too much. So we took him across the street to the pond. The cool thing was, he didn't seem to mind my children loving on him like a real family pet. I say all this because tomorrow is reptile and amphibian day at art camp. Oh the fun we are going to have painting crocks, turtles, snakes, and frogs! I wish Junior was still around to model for us!

Orange Kisses

Oh, I was wanting to do a gray and orange color scheme, and here it is! My little kissing flowers dancing all over the canvas in orange make me so happy! This is an acrylic painting on gallery wrapped deep canvas. It's 20" x 24". The painting is hanging at The Vintage-Flea for sale.

New Oil Pastel Paintings

"In the Winter Bloom"

"La-La in the Kissing Flowers"

These are two new oil pastel paintings. I've mentioned in previous posts that I really like working in different mediums with the same subject matter. I was looking at my oil pastels and just had to dive in last night! These are the two I finished and plan to put in these great IKEA frames I bought last week. They'll probably be heading of to B'ham in August.

Happy 4th of July!

This is Mattie on the 4th of July! Mailey insisted she be holding a sparkler in her beak. Don't you love her new tights? I hope you and your family have a great day. We will be super busy today. It's an election year so we have many appearances to make, BBQ to eat and a HUGE parade.

Living in small town America has its advantages in that we have a beautiful downtown square that has a parade for everything! Today's parade by far has the largest number of entries and viewers. We'll throw about 15 bags of candy (super size that is) and wave for about 2 miles. It starts at the McKoon funeral home and ends at the high school. At the end we all pile up in the football stadium and baseball field to picnic and anxiously wait for the fireworks to start. Now, these are not redneck Joe in the backyard fireworks, these are the canon ones. It's a wonderful display. From our family to yours, we hope you have a wonderful 4th!

There Go the Bride and Groom!

Aren't these two adorable? Just ready for a big white fluffy cake to sit on! I just got word that these two kids sold in my etsy shop today to a lady named Victoria in the United Kingdom. Her address said the name of a florist, so maybe they will be a part of an upcoming UK wedding! Oh what fun these two are going to have!

Nests and Our Homes

We've had an unusually stormy night or two the past week here in Newnan. And while the rain is such a blessing, the aftermath of a serious storm always has its' consequences. My poor neighbor had a pine tree land right through her house, flooding it pretty good. Mother nature tends to fight with fury sometimes and while we as humans can clean up and move on, I am sure the little birds in our yard feel vulnerable and sad when their homes are destroyed. My William was out in the front yard Sunday when he came running into the house with the most beautiful nest, full of broken blue eggs. He was really upset that the babies had been crushed. On Monday he found another nest under the oak tree, no eggs this time. Then today he found yet another! I took his picture with the nests to document the findings. Honestly I was a little excited because I love my collection of nests he's found, birds he's made from clay and my vintage ones all together in a cabinet. Three in 3 days is a real coo. After I took the pictures I studied the findings a bit and noticed the uniqueness of each of them, and how truly beautiful they were. Little works of art. Some mother bird worked extremely hard to make their babies a home to wake up in. There is no telling how many hours she gathered, wove, and waited for her children to arrive. Don't we as human mothers do the same? We busy ourselves with tending to the day in and day out chores of making our house a home. I know some of my chores are quite tedious, like laundry and the potty room, and I do complain about those jobs. But at the end of the day when I take my two children to bed, I love knowing that this home we've built together is built with worldly things of course, but it is also built with lots of love, kindness, patience, and happiness.
Our home is full of layers, just like the nest above. It's what keeps us together as a family and will continue to hold strong, even in our weakest moments. And just like the nest, our home could one day be a little damaged, but the layers of memories, they will stand the test of time no matter where we live.
This is a painting I did of one of our family nests. It hangs in our living area...I've not yet been able to part with it. Maybe it's the mother bird in me, but this nest makes me feel calm when I see it. Makes me feel right at home.