Shell Tree

Was thinking I wanted to decorate my tinsel tree for summer, and what better summer ornament than shells. Drilling holes was a little tricky, a broke a few. I then added a little ribbon bow to hang. Voila.

Art Easels

I've been to the beach, but I've also been blog hopping, getting inspired for art camp. I think we are going to try our hand at weaving and also making art easels out of craft sticks. I've been on a craft stick kick lately. There are so many things you can do with a craftstick, they are so handy.

Mobiles

OMGN- I found the coolest mobile project at plumpudding art blog, I am prepping for something similar for art camp. Can't wait to make mobiles with my camp artists. But before I do this I wanna head to the Orange County Museum of Art, in Newport Beach and see Alexander Calder's mobile exhibit. Maybe I'll get a chance over the weekend. When I was in D.C. in March, the National Gallery of Art had a whole room of Calder mobiles and the coolest part about it was seeing the shadows that the mobiles created on the walls around them, and how they moved and changed depending on the way the mobile moved.

The Calder exhibit is at OCMA until Sept 4th. It's open Weds thru Sunday 11-5. Let me know if you see it and what you thought.

thrift find

One of my favorite things to do is wander through thriftstores looking for hidden treasures. I was in the Salvation Army yesterday and saw this painting by the artist McCaine. I was drawn to it, something about the stylized depictions of the elephants, especially the baby one. I passed it up because of a small tear in the bottom part. I went home and looked the artist up and got little info on him, except he was from the midwest and painted for aaron bros. in Palm Springs in the 60's and 70's. Been thinking about the painting ever since I saw it, there's just something about it, so I went back today and talked the price down cuz of the rip. I now own an elephant painting, and I really like it.

card catalog decoupage

I was blog browsing this morning and I really got inspired here. Sara has a great house that she has decorated with funky patchwork and bright colors. I was inspired to collage decoupage my card file that I have had for a while. I got it free from the library a few years back but it had an unfinished top that I never knew what to do with, but now I figured it out. Thanks for the inspiration Sara.

Spaghetti Dogs

We made spaghetti dogs tonight, just had to try them after seeing them in a couple of places on the internet, including here. Henry helped thread all the noodles into the hot dog chunks. I also made brocoli and a cheese sauce to go on top, but the kids liked just parm cheese on top, and they ate it all.

Summer Art

This is a great project for the end of the year or the beginning of the school year too, when your feet have gotten so used to wearing flipflops and you have to put your school shoes back on. But, who's thinking about that now? We have the whole summer ahead of us.

Pablo Picasso's Summer Bouquet. I usually teach his hand with bouquet in springtime, but look, he has a summer bouquet too.

FYI- I'm teaching an art camp, a mixed media art studio in fact, from July 5-8th. It's from 8:45-12:15 for artists going into 2nd-5th grade. Let me know if you need more details

But before we get too ahead of ourselves, let's take a day off and go to the beach.