Pimp my Ride OR Ian's Exteme Car Makeover

Ian has been home this past week. When he finally arrived, it was clear that his vehicle was on it's last legs. Our freebie from our friend Crazy Lenny's Used Car Lot (which is actually a field lot that he leases for storage of his various and sundry vehicles for his business), an 87 Ford Tempo, has served Ian well for the past year, but really, he needed a REAL car that he could depend on.

The backstory here is that Lenny bought the Tempo a couple of years ago for his son Alex who is the same age as Ian (and the car). Apparently, Alex got into some kind of disagreement with another young man who decided to make his point by pouring a gallon of green paint all over the dash board and front seats. So Alex decided the car was no longer driveable. When we go it, it had been sitting for a long time (six months? a year, maybe?) and was pretty sad. It ran, but needed a lot of TLC to get it really usable again after soaking up all of that Florida sun and rain. We were able to peel most of the paint away from the moving parts enough to be usable-- the passenger side window and one a/c vent had been completely sealed w/ paint.

I've got to give Ian credit for soldiering through this character-building experience and making do with the "Tempotron" for the past year. He really did make the best of it and decked it out with a lovely hood ornament, pajama flannel seat covers (dinosaurs and space shuttles), plastic snakes that hung from the sun visors and an eclectic collection of hats in the back window. And, after it suffered the indignity of being broken into and having the radio ripped out (OK, now really, WHO would want that radio????), he lived with a plastic and duct tape window on the passenger side. Note the finely crafted passenger window in the photo above left.

So it was obvious, it was time for the Tempo to GO.

This week, Alan and Ian located a 96 Subaru Legacy wagon with 132,000 miles on it for a decent price and bought it. It needed a bit of fine-tuning, but promises to be dependable transportation and Ian is very happy with it. So tomorrow he's heading back up to Savannah with it. I'll be keeping my fingers crossed until I hear he's made it home...

Family Album ready for it's debut

Click on this image to view larger version

In the past 24 hours I've finished my Family Album piece, shot an image of it in the backyard and submitted the digital image to the woman organizing the show that will open on July 9th. Whew. I need to get a tripod and work on improving my skills shooting art pieces. I feel the piece turned out pretty well overall-- but I do see some color issues that I'd do differently next time around.

The show is called "Relationships" and will be set up in a private law office on Park Ave in Winter Park through the month of July. I'll take pictures at the opening reception to share. I will only be able to invite guests to come in to view on the weekends since it is a working law practice. But I am very excited to have my art up for view somewhere other than my home... Onward and upward!

The family members featured in this piece are:
1st row (all are left to right) Alan and his sister Sharon, My great-grandmother Keegan, a grouping with my grandparents on the right (Edna and Harry Schuerman)
2nd row My grandparents Nora and Bill Elmslie, My parents and me, Alan's grandparents Lora and Ray Oberholtzer
3rd row My grandfather Harry Schuerman, my mother in law Pat Oberholtzer, and my brother Greg (sorry Greg, I HADto use that picture!)

So there you have it.

Coming soon...

Art-wise-- I've started my "Family Album" series of 9 canvasses-- each is a 5 in square, one photo per -- so it will be 9 squares hung in a grid-- or perhaps all in a row.  I've got so many great images that have just been waiting to be seen, so this will be fun. I've already done 2-- one of my great grandmother "Mutter" Keegan in a great hat, and one of my grandfather "Hellraiser" Harry Schuerman. I promise to get photos up of those two at least, this week or weekend at the latest. I have 4 more images ready to go and canvasses waiting, so hopefully this weekend I'll get those going. 

  I started my new art class on Tues and there's a woman in the class who is organizing an exhibit called "Relationships" at her law firm that will start (be "hung", as we say in the art world-- which is not the same at all as being "hung" in other contexts). Anyway, the goal is to get this grouping done in time to be part of that show. 

Who knew that I'd have the opportunity to show my artwork as fast as I could produce it once I got rolling? I'm not exactly famous or rich yet, but this is gratifying nonetheless.

Thanks to everybody who responded to my initial postings-- I'm just hoping this will be a good vehicle for keeping in touch w/ everybody.

Latest photo of Kaitlin

I keep saying I need to get a real portait photo of K. done, but this is one I snapped this week with my dandy new camera. Little Guy also insisted on draping himself across the image.

My first show at the Maitland Public Library!!!

Yes, it's only a public library and all I had to do to get my stuff in to the show was to simply say yes, but I am thrilled that I have art on public display!!! This is our class show -- it's all work done by Kaye Callaway's students from Maitland Art Center-- and I must say, there is some really really nice work showing. So even though it's a freebie, I am honored to have my work hanging in such good company.

DETAILS from Nora and Barbara & Ginny

Wanted to show a couple of details of how the texture is working on my two collage pieces.....

Barbara Lee & Virginia

This is going backwards-- I need to think about how I enter these posts so you see the first things first.

OK-- This is the second big collage piece I did--- It's a picture of my mother and her big sister (Barbara Lee). It's a darling picture of them and I'm happy with the way the textured background came out-- That's a layer of gesso for texture and I used a stencil to get the flowery pattern-- then layered on several different colors in acrylic to enhance the texture. The photo of the girls what scanned in and colored and sized in Photoshop. The overall size is 16 x 20.

Pretty Norah

This is the piece I did with a photo of my grandmother. I first layered gesso on the canvas and used a stencil to form the curliques. There are several layers of color over the textured gesso layer. I scanned in the photo and sized and colored it a bit in Photoshop.

Pretty Norah and Barbara Lee & Virginia

I wanted to show you my two best pieces from the recent collage/painting class I took w/ Kaye Callaway at the Maitland Art Center. Kaye is great, because you can tell her what you wnat to work on and she will offer whatever guidance and advice needed. And the class is a joy because the group is so supportive-- we're all cheering each other on and offering suggestions-- it's great fun.