Gallery Visit with Students

 Olivia, The artist Zanne Brunner, and Amber

 Zanne's "Barbie" inspired series is just too much fun!. The top paintings are oil pastel on paper. The lower group is gouache on canvas. The little purses were filled with trivia facts about Barbie.

 Paintings and clay masks taken from the large painting below.

 This large painting of Zanne's son, and his uncles was the inspiration for a new series of work in the show.

 "Barbies on a Stick" was the inspiration for the paintings in the first photo. The artist bought the Barbies at an estate sale for 50 cents along with the pot holders that later became their dresses.

 Oil pastel on paper, and the mask

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 My favorite portrait from the show with the clay mask.

Tuesday I took  my IB Visual Art students  to see local artist, Zanne Brunner's solo exhibit "Voyage" at I-Square Visions Art gallery. Zanne is a good friend of mine and agreed to meet us at the gallery after school to  talk about herself and her "voyage" as an artist, teacher and now director of the I-square gallery.
Zanne entertained us with her adventures and journey as a child growing up in Detroit, which inspired her love for the color teal. She  told us about her first painting teacher in collage who told her to limit her choice of colors...like that worked. She worked as a graphic artist in N.J. and later came to R.I.T for her teacher degree. She was a High School Art  teacher in Webster until she retired a few years ago. She is now a full time artist who also works as the director for  I-Square Visions Art gallery in Irondequoit.

Stages of the Process for 2013

 A work in progress, don't worry that back ground sky won't stay blue.

 Just love the blue green leaves of Agave.

 They may look like pumpkins now but they are golden barrel cacti.

 Cleistocatus

  
 You might remember last fall that I used photo's from a trip out west as inspiration  to create several paintings for a landscape show that I was in. It brought back such wonderful memories, along with a new found love for cactus/succulents that I've started collecting them.  I've taken and collected photographs of different cactus and decided to created a new series of paintings.
 As you can see I always start with black line to create the abstracted form, and than start adding color with oil pastel. I'm so excited with these beginnings I've decided to post my process.
Last year I neglected my blog a bit so documenting the painting process might be a great  way to jump start the blogging process again.
Hope you enjoy.