More Baskets

I spent yesterday in Franklin making baskets. The round one is the largest of a set of 3 nesting muffin baskets. I will be making a few more trips and will make one of these on each trip until I have the full set. The one with the feet holds a little bean pot shaped bowl that can be used for dip or salsa or whatever you want to put in it.

Travel Teaching

I'm just back from teaching at a decorative painting retreat in Ohio. I taught 4 classes in colored pencil and took a basket making class. It was a very busy weekend. Once the retreat started, I was booked every class period. One of the classes I taught was called Your Pet in Colored Pencil. I had 3 students who each sent me photos of their dogs before the retreat started so that I could adjust the photos, select their pencils, prepare their packets and select some papers for them to choose from. For my demonstration/teaching piece, I chose to use one of their photos. This little Schnauzer had elements that each of the students needed to know about, so he was a pretty good demo choice. When I was selecting papers, I found a piece of purple card stock and that was what I used just to show them that you could be very creative in your choice of backgrounds as long as what you select supports the colors in your subject.

YUM!

Here is another little pastel painting. I bought this beautiful mango and then painted it before it became dessert. The pieces is about 5x5 on sanded paper. Mangos have a very satin textured skin, so there are no really strong highlights, but there were 2 soft highlights from the overhead light and the window.