Hawaiian Sunset

The long winter must be getting to me, because I find myself fascinated with all things tropical lately. So, aloha friends.
Today I'm sharing a little bit of the aloha spirit and also my Hawaiian Sunset lesson.  Aloha is more than a word, isn't it?  It means hello, goodbye, but also carries a deeper meaning.  The aloha spirit signifies giving without expecting anything in return.  I means accepting each as a valuable part of the whole, living peacefully in the present, and being one with the natural world.
Students made these beautiful tropical sunsets for our PTG fund raiser this year. They'll send them away to be printed on various items.  To make them we first made a watercolor wash to make an ocean sunset.  We used liquid watercolors, but you can use what you have.  Then we used our backgrounds to create a beach silhouette.  Students really loved this lesson.  We used this video to practice drawing our palm trees (not a native species in Vermont). How to draw palm trees And we used this video to practice our hula. Aloha Music.

Aren't they fun?  Don't they make you want to create a little aloha spirit of your own?

Student Art Goes Up

There is a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes to stage a show.  Mounting the work, labeling, sorting, and finally hanging the show.  Here's the 2013 student art show going up at the Southern Vermont Art Center.  I was so appreciative to get a little extra time at school this year to get student work ready.  Usually I do a lot of this work on my own time at home.  This year I was able to get a lot done at school, and although I still ended up putting time in at home to pull last minute things together, it was much better this year.   I hung the show on Thursday.  Enjoy.

Mini Mosaics

Found a bucket of stone tiles laying around.  These were leftover from someone's long ago renovation.  Can you tell I have a hard time saying no.

To these I added some busted up China and a sprinkling of odd beads.  Glued it all down.  Added some grout.  And there you have it.  Mini mosaics.

If you don't have a bucket of stone tiles laying around your house, you could repeat the same process on some smooth river rocks for some awesome garden art.

Which do you prefer...grey or white grout?  I kinda like the white, but the bits and pieces seem to stand out better against the grey.  Which do you like?