Red cup drawings

Hope everyone had a wonderful Monday! I just wanted to share some of my drawing students'red cup drawings. They are pretty cute and wonderful:) I gave each student a red plastic cup and had students study the highlights and shadows that were on the cup. Students used colored construction paper and colored pencils. They really turned out very fun:)

Well I must go and paint..have a lovely rest of your Monday!

Creativity Tips

Wow! What a cold day it is outside here in Ohio! I cannot believe it is October and in the low 30's! We seemed to have skipped fall! The colors of the trees are beautiful though so I am not going to complain:) Just wish it was a tad warmer out!

Hope everyone has a productive Sunday, I am heading out for a run and then working on putting some new art on Etsy and preparing for the school week ahead.

Anyways...I wanted to share with you this great article by Amy Ng from Etsy's Storque about ways to becoming more creative. It was such a great little article with some lovely book recommends (I already have added a bunch of the books to my Amazon cart!)that I thought I would post it for you. Enjoy!
Pikaland's 9 Tips On Being More Creative

Finished Art....finally!

Happy Saturday! Today I completed a couple of new artworks...yay! I had been working on them for a couple of weeks and finally finished them all. I am in an art show November 14th in Westlake, Ohio and have been preparing for the big day! Today I also ordered a bunch of Christmas cards that I made using my artwork and also ordered some prints! I hope everything turns out! I have never made prints of my art before but have always wanted to...we shall see how they turn out I guess:) The following artwork is not in my etsy store quite yet but hopefully will be soon!


Sweet Pink Bird



Little Brown Bird


Fall Tree



Blue Bird on Purple Branch


Blue Bird on Pink Leaf



Light Pink Bird

Have a lovely Saturday!

Working away...

I have an art show coming up November 14th (so excited) and have been creating some new art for the show.

Here are some of my new backgrounds I created recently:



I started collaging some organic branches and leaves to the backgrounds:




Next I will be collaging some little birds and maybe adding some hand-painted elements to the pieces. So exciting and so much to do!

Oh and guess what I bought...fairy lights!



I thought they were so cute and totally brightened up my desk! The coolest thing about them is that they plug into your laptop with a usb drive. How clever!

Well I am off to get ready for the coming week..have a great Sunday!

Scenes from the country...

Last weekend the husband and I went and stayed with his parents. His parents live out in the country in the most picturesque area. I LOVE to stay out there. It is so quiet and peaceful and pretty:) Here is what I saw when I stayed out there:



Check out those cornfields!




I love the contrast between textures of the corn and the grasses!


Last dandelions of the season...oh how they remind me of summer!


These are everywhere! I just love the handmade signs...so quaint:)










My favorite barn...I just love the color!


I would love to have fruit trees like these in my yard




And who would not want to live on Rainbow Drive? Love the street name!


Well I hope you have a relaxing Saturday...I am off to go run outside, it is actually NOT raining right now! Yay!

Festive idea with Recycled Papers

I love this festive idea from Design Sponge. I think I will be making lots of birthday and holiday cards this way!

Alexi Murdoch and Away We Go

Wow...posting two days in a row....who would have thought I could do it?! I just wanted to tell you about a wonderful movie I just watched called Away We Go!

Here is the trailer:



It was so sweet and funny and had the BEST soundtrack by Alexi Murdoch! I am downloading it now from itunes and can't wait to listen to it:)

Away We Go is directed by Sam Mendes and has John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph as the lead characters.

Here is Alexi Murdoch playing my favorite song from the movie called All My Days



Wow...sorry to bombard you with youtube clips!

Anyways...as I watched this adorable movie, I also got some work done in my studio.


My indoor studio space


Painting some backgrounds for some new collages


Little bird next to a new background piece...I wonder what I will collage on top!?

Well I must go and motivate myself to run outside on this cold and dreary looking Saturday...ugggg...hope your weather is prettier wherever you may be!

Bright Star

Happy Friday! This is my absolute favorite night of the week because I have the entire weekend ahead of me! Hooray!

One thing I want to do this weekend is see the movie Bright Star. The movie is about the true story of poet John Keats and his love affair with his neighbor Fanny Brawne. It looks like such a romantic and sweet film and I cannot wait to see it! Check out the trailer below.



Have a fantastic Friday!

I heart post-its

Dear Art Pen Pal,

I just sent you a letter and here is a clue as to what is in it:)

Love,
Michelle

hehe..I love having an art pen pal:)

On another note...how have you been? I am still kind of bad about posting on this blog. I have been very busy with school and have just posted some art on my classroom blog.

I am having a great year so far and actually have an art show in November that I am pretty excited about. I have not shown my art in about 5 1/2 years! I know it will be fun:)

I have been feeling pretty inspired lately and cannot wait to create some new art.

Here is a mini canvas that I painted that is just waiting to get finished (my little white bird likes to sit near it and pretend it is by the ocean)


Meanwhile I can't stop listening to Madeline Peyroux...she is my favorite!



Have a great evening! I will post soon!

Oh Sunday...

(lantern picture taken on my last excursion to downtown Cleveland) Love the colors!

Sundays are bittersweet for me....what about you? It is the last day to sleep in for the weekend and I find myself thinking the whole day about the crazy week ahead of me.

Oh Sunday.....

This Sunday was spent working on lesson plans for my Intro to Art class and writing recommendation letters for colleagues and students. Now I need to go and grade some projects...very busy busy!

I just posted some new student projects on my class website if you are interested:

PHS Artroom blog

Hope your Sunday is going well!