February 8, 2014

Lots going on today! We're contemplating a slight style change and want your opinion....

But first—do you ever look at the links on the side? One of them, Mandala-a-day belongs to our very own teacher, Pat. And just this week, she was contacted by a Swiss metal band, Promethee. They saw her blog and wanted to license the rights to one of the mandalas (#203, specifically) for an album cover. Isn't that amazing?! We are all very excited and wanted to be sure to share the news. Here's the mandala they liked. And here's a link to the band's website. You can also see them on YouTube, or follow them on Facebook. I think you'll agree this is a great choice on the part of the band. You rock, Pat!

We were so eager to share that news that we bumped it "above the fold" instead of saving it for after the art. But that's not the formatting change we were talking about. We had a request to break up the information about the paintings, keeping the words closer to the paintings we're talking about. Saves scrolling up and back so many times. That makes some sense, so we'll try that. Let us know what you think.

We must be affected by this weather more than we'd like to think. John's co-workers told him his drawings are just too cold and depressing as he continues his story illustration below.

Meanwhile, the rest of us are trying to escape...

 

...to happy places like cabins in the woods.....

 ...or sunny vacation days—at the zoo, the Kiddieland carousel or a fun-filled weiner-dog race at a Wisconsin fair.

In fact, animals are big with us today. Besides the weiner dogs, we painted our pet cats and dinosaurs.

 

And our newbies continue to amaze us. First of all, they braved the elements to attend. Secondly, they painted some lovely color wheels. Besides being lovely, they are going to prove very useful. And one of our students has moved on to explore complementary colors and attempt the notorious "paper towel."

Artist of the day. Ken brought in a book on pre-historic art, so the artist of the day is Unknown. Nonetheless, there were some very sophisticated and meaningful drawings to be seen on cave walls. And we couldn't help notice that the rich warm color palette of ochres, golds, siennas, browns and blacks has been making its way into Ken's latest efforts. Some things span the ages.

Miscellaneous. Lots of little miscellaneous things today, so we'll just list them in no particular order:

• Happy Birthday, Bernie!
• We miss all our "fair weather" friends who are spending the day in warmer places—Sara, Susan, Steve, Ellen, Alan and Greeta—and to those who are snowed in like Vivian.
• Ken's show continues at Ten Cat Tavern. See our entry from last week for details, but be sure to stop by if you get a chance.
• Congrats again, Pat!
• Darn that groundhog anyway.

Let us know your thoughts about our new descriptive style....or would you rather go back to seeing the paintings uninterrupted by narrative?

 See you next week.