Friends and Family

I always seem to be doing art projects with my family; whether we're pumpkin carving, decorating holiday cookies, painting ceramics at the clay café, doing Paint Nite, or a dry run of one of my senior projects with my daughter and niece.

Paint Nites are really fun! You can relax, drink a glass of wine (or two), and paint something you know is going to turn out well. While you are given a specific palette of colors (right) of acrylic paint, there are those who surprisingly paint outside of the box and use their own color schemes. A little cooler I'd say!

      

One of my friends loves to quilt and has gifted us handmade wall hangings. She challenges herself by cutting out and piecing together complicated pieces to craft this bison or buffalo or recently a colorful freestyle fish hanging. Her stitching embellishment is an amazing finishing touch which is reminiscent of Van Gogh brushstrokes for added texture.

One of the seniors who took my Pastel Painting class is also an accomplished quilter.

When my wife was doing radiation treatment, I wanted to help make it more bearable by having her open a small gift every day before each one. There was candy, jewelry, magnets with poetic verses and words of encouragement. I conceived of what I called the 'Rad-vent' Calendar that was strung up on a wall in the kitchen. Like the Christmas Advent Calendar, each little bag was numbered starting at thirty and counting down to one.

An unexpected outcome of this was that it eased the tension somewhat for my wife as the technicians anticipated her story of what gift she had opened that morning.