Visiting Artist Project

About a week ago I volunteered to visit one of the middle schools in Fort Myers as part of their visiting artist project. It was the first time I had done this so I was somewhat concerned but also very excited. I only had one hour (and that flew by) to interact with the art class and try to encourage and inspire them to love creating art through painting.

The class was somewhat reluctant in the beginning (you know how peer pressure is), but one by one many of them joined the painters and worked on a couple of canvasses I brought with me. While we had very little time to work, I wanted them to get the feel of applying good quality paint to canvas and watch the transformation from a basic beginning outline and the various steps would be seen when i brought it back to completion.

I have put the 2 finished paintings on my blog because I felt the success of these paintings was partly due to the interaction I had with the students. I hope they will be encouraged to try painting again and not be intimidated by mixing colors and painting over when changes are needed.

This past weekend we exhibited at the Boca Raton Museum Festival of Arts. We were fortunate to have had only a brief rain shower at about 4:15 pm. That sent the people scattering and we got to go home (hotel home) early. The crowds seemed to be good but also reluctant to purchase large ticket items. Between Guiteau and I we made a small profit after expenses of the booth fee, hotels, rental car, etc. We don't count food expenses because we have those at home too.

We will be moving ourselves down to Miami on Wednesday and will be there for about 12 days. I have already begun some new paintings and will work down there in between the shows.

We continue to be in good health and stay blessed. We ask God for traveller's mercies and provision for our daily needs. May He also bless all of you who take the time to read this.