I am not doing a good job keeping this blog up.  For those of you who have been wondering about how the fair turned out I got a 1st and a 3rd place ribbon.  Also I have been asked to be a featured artist at this years Utah Foster Care Foundation Chalk Art Festival! I will be drawing a mermaid with the assistance of my fun in-laws.

So I have challenged myself to leave my happy mermaid place and return to my roots in art. As a major part of this I am going to submit two of my pieces to the county fair. This really scares me a bit because I will be in the "professional" category which is intimidating to say the least. Hopefully something good comes of it. I am pleased with the results. One picture is of my little Erin after a bath done in colored pencil completed in two days. It is titled "Little Bug in a Rug." The other one is called "Beach Baby" and it is watercolor done from a photo so kindly taken and given to my by a former student. This one I stressed over weeks if not months. Wish me luck.

My students and I made a local news with an article in the South Valley Journal. We took some of our summer break to teach some elementary students how to create street paintings also known as chalk art. You may read the article with this link https://www.arcasearch.com/us/ut/?paper=jsv on page 4b.

Some people may wonder what has happened to this blog and the answer is simple: I had a baby. I thought I would update this blog by noting that I attended the Chalk Art Festival this year and with help from my lovely in-laws (who follow coloring instructions really well) we won! One of my students won in the same catagory in the student section. Very exciting! Here are pictures of our art and my cutie pie.

Normal people spend Saturdays doing things like cleaning and running errands. This weekend I spent 13 hours coloring in 120 square feet of sidewalk to create a chalk mural in down town Salt Lake. It was a blast. It was for the Chalk Arts Festival put on by the Utah Foster Care Foundation. I worked with my team (my sister-in-laws Amy and Trish, my mom-in-law Karyn, and my lovely co-worker Liz) for a combined 50 man hours. We created a hole to China which was a lot of fun. As you can see I was a vision of beauty after this process. It was so hot I could have died right there on the sidewalk. One big bonus is that our square was sponsered by McGrath's Fish House (of all the times I decide not to draw a mermaid) who were nice enough to feed us a couple of meals, although from the picture it looks like I just ate chalk.

School is out. Teaching art is much more exhausting than creating art. I have found a new small love…ACEO cards. They are basically trading cards that feature artwork. How cool is that? I have created quite a few of them and I just really enjoy it. I am ready for summer… big plans. Stay tuned.

Where magic happens!

Back to painting... It has been a while since I have been able to watercolor. Life is crazy. I have been thinking about trying some ACEO cards. It will give me a chance to expand. I am happy that I have had some time today to paint. I am also eliminating what I call my "side shows". I have told Michael's that Monday will be my last day to teach watercolor and in a few weeks I will be done with my kids class. Life has just got busy and with near future plans I needed to do some rearranging. And yes, this is where my paintings are created.

This week I have been suffering because of my art...literally. In the middle of Mother's Day Maddness I managed to cut my finger open. Of course I had to do it in some artsy way. I sliced it by way of a piece of stained glass. My nurse (my dear Bryan) got it to stop bleeding, but it has bothered me all week long.

Anyways... how about my new found creative outlet? For the past 6 months I have been learning how to Irish Step Dance. For anyone out there that ever thought about it I would highly suggest it. It is so much fun. Everyonce in a while I come up with a new Irish themed mermaid, probably has a lot to do with my dancing.

For the past while I have found myself swamped with commissions. My current project has been an acrylic painting that will eventually serve as a headboard on a bed for a young lady. It has been a fun project, but I really want my kitchen back. Which leads me to one of my internal complaints...I need a studio. The spare bedroom is driving me crazy. It probably won't happen for a year or so. It will be something to encourage my painting.

May is here. I can't wait until June. I need to update this crazy art business I have. My "studio" (the spare bedroom with my drawing desk squished in front of the file cabinet) is a mess. I can't get it to look like any kind of living space. So that will be my goal, that and finishing the huge painting in my kitchen.

Today I had to take a stupid test to prove that I know how to teach. Biggest waste of my life. I spent 2 ½ hours locked up in a room hand writing 12 pages of garbage that has no meaning to me, plus I spent $125 taking this test. It has killed my creative juices. I have been trying for hours to bring myself to paint. I know I will feel better if I do…but getting there is a huge part of the battle. I entered four paintings in the art show and decided to throw prices on three of them. I really don’t want them to sell, but I am more curious if they will.

Do I create the art? Or does it create me? I really don’t care. I am just here to have a place that I can complain and celebrate the pains and joys of being an artist. I just do what I need to do to get through life…and to get through it happily and art makes me happy. I am preparing for an art show right now. I am not a fan of doing the things that typical artists are supposed to do, but it is exciting just the same. I have three paintings, none of which are mermaids. Go figure. I wish I would have had more than 3 days notice though.