Pears, pears and more pears!

First, I need to correct something I said in my last blog post. Our new rooster and hens were given to us by our FRIEND, who also happens to be Jon's boss. :) The friendship has gone on much longer than the working relationship, however!

Our neighbors have a pear tree that has produced abundantly this year. They have been very generous with the fruit, and we all worked together to make pear honey a few weeks ago. While we had all these wonderful pears around I decided to do a couple of fun paintings with some of them as models. I also had some long, slender mats my mom had given me, so I painted these to fit the mats.




I'm going to be in another art show this weekend. This time it's a Christmas sale featuring a lot of local artists and craftsmen. I participated in the first one last year and had a lot of fun! It will be tomorrow (Friday) from 4 to 8pm, and Saturday from 10 to 5pm, at the Jan Dempsey Art Center in Auburn. Please come out and do your Christmas shopping, and come by to say hello to me!!

2008

Lots of artists' blogs I've read in the past couple of weeks have mentioned their art-related goals for this year. I have decided that the only one I can realistically attempt to accomplish (with everything else I've got going on) is to sketch every day. It can be a quick 3 minute one if needed, but I do want to try to keep my hand fresh. I know I won't have time to paint that often, since that requires clearing off the kitchen table and getting out all my stuff. :)

This past week we collected ants for David's new ant farm and have had a blast watching them dig tunnels! Fascinating. That first day, I did a quick sketch of an ant while watching them through the magnifying glass. This is with pencil on a note pad- one of those freebies from a business.



Another night this week I did a quick sketch of a grapefruit and a bell pepper for a scavenger hunt item (from Wetcanvas). It was done at night in very poor light and the colors show it!



Then this evening I did a sketch of the three tadpoles that we've had since August!! These things are huge. I think they must be bullfrog tadpoles, which can take as long as three years to become mature frogs!! Yikes!! I don't know how much of those three years they are tadpoles, but we may have taken on a longer commitment than we knew! :)



I hope your 2008 has begun well!

Holiday Art Sale

Well, I've been busy this week doing school with David and getting ready for a local art sale this Friday. I've decided to have another set of note cards printed and hope to do well with all three sets and some prints at the sale. I'll also be bringing my original paintings and some things to work on while there. The sale is from noon to 9 pm, so I need to have something to do!

I am planning to paint another floral to replace the butterfly one in this group, but until I get that done I am going ahead with it this way.

This Sunday night we'll be playing our Christmas music at church, which should be good. It's one of my favorite services of the year. I love this music and the joyous occasion it commemorates!

Note Card packs for Christmas gifts

After I sent out my last blog update, a friend followed the link to see my note cards on Greeting Card Universe, but wanted to buy them in packs to give as Christmas presents. Greeting Card Universe doesn't do that, so I decided to do it myself. :)


For now I've come up with 2 different groups, each composed of 8 note cards (2 each of 4 designs) and envelopes. I have several paintings not included in these, but plan to increase my selection in future if these do well.


The first set is all florals. The second one includes paintings of a monastery in Ukraine, so I'm calling it the monastery group. If you'd like to order some packs to give as Christmas presents, please let me know! thebrashers1@bellsouth.net Each pack of 8 cards and envelopes is $12.00.




We just returned from a home builders association's new product expo, where Jon had an exhibit of his invention, Storm Greeter. It seemed to be well received, and everyone who stopped and looked was very interested. We're really excited about it and expect it to take off very soon! For more information on this great product that will protect metal construction components from rust and corrosion, see http://www.missioncreekllc.com/.


David had a great time! He became the sous chef of the chef hired to demonstrate an induction stove for one of the exhibitors. One thing about David is that he is NOT shy. He got to know all the exhibitors in the hall and then cooked most of the day. The chef said that he made a wonderful helper, doing exactly what he was told and then able to recreate the recipe on the third time around. It was a really good experience for him!


I also got a chance to do a little sketching on two afternoons, and I enjoyed that!

Some new paintings

A couple of weeks ago I did some small paintings that I really enjoyed. I had so much fun I think I'll keep doing some this size. They are about 5"x7". I think I'm going to put the one with the butterfly up on my Greeting Card Universe store and Cafe Press. Neither of the originals is available for sale, but prints of the butterfly one are.

Plenty from a friend's garden

Several weeks ago a good friend invited ds and me to lunch after a pleasant morning of blueberry picking together. Afterwards, she sent me home with bounty from her garden! It was wonderfully colorful, so I took pictures before we began to consume it.

This weekend I did a couple of small paintings from some of the pictures, and began several others. I think I overworked these tomatoes, but I enjoyed myself! I'll post the others when I finish them.

On a different subject, we've been on two field trips in two weeks! Amazing. Last year in school we barely did two field trips in a half a year. Anyway, we went to the Audobon Aquarium in New Orleans two weeks ago when we traveled with dh on a business trip, and last week we went to Callaway Gardens with the same friend who gave us food from her garden. We have really enjoyed both trips. I plan to do more field trips this year to help ds enjoy school more. He is such a hands-on learner that I think they are good for him.

New Horizons

Well, I've been following a fellow artist's blog now for several months, and this week I noticed something new. It's a cool graphic that leads to a store for her images sold as greeting cards. Anita Davies So... I had some time tonight and decided to explore for myself. I've set up a card store now, and plan to add more images to both it and the Cafe Press store in the next few days when I take the shrink wrap and mats off my other artwork, scan it in with a higher resolution, and then re-shrink wrap them. :)

Meanwhile, I'm going to attempt to add the graphic to my blog tonight. I did a small watercolor sketch of some vegetables with my students in yesterday's art class and had a lot of fun. I'll scan it in later.

I've got a painting I really want to try to finish in the next week or so. It's been on my mind for years, and I actually began it a couple of years ago. I'm finally getting to the finishing stages of it, after working on it in fits and starts since I began it. It's of two little girls who are playing together on the steps. They appear as different as night and day, and when I saw them I couldn't resist taking several pictures!

Commission finished and delivered

Here is a painting that I finished and delivered a few weeks ago, and forgot to post. The person who commissioned it seemed to really like it, but I never heard whether her husband liked it or not. It was a gift for him.

This commission came about because of the times I had my artwork set up at the gym. The client kept my card and called me later. :)

Cafe Press store!

Well, I've taken the plunge and signed up for a Cafe Press store to try to sell some of my artwork. I'm going to try to add a banner to this site if possible, but if not I'll at least put up a link. Y'all come on by and see what's there!

Here's my link- it's also now in the side bar. www.cafepress.com/leslie_brasher .