These shoes were made for walking!

Hi everyone, so sorry this is late, I have had a crazy week. Our class last Saturday was amazing! We had a fun, uncomfortable time diving into our inner selves to see how to best use our time to do the things we love and to move into the direction of where we want to be in the future. We talked about the passions and dreams that some of the women have, about different options and classes to help move you toward your dreams. Our sketchbooks are places where we can write down those dreams. You can record them there, in that safe place, and as you work towards them you can visually see your progress. Not everyone wants to have a business, some just want to do more traveling, etc. Whatever your dream, your passion is what "action" are you taking this month to move you closer to fulfilling that dream. Try setting yourself a goal and doing one thing to move towards it.

We also drew our shoes, everyone brought a favorite shoe and we passed them around the table. The object was to think about your composition, how would you fit all the shoes onto the page. It was to turn and paint each shoe in a different direction for interest. It was a little bit about address a problem called foreshortening, when somethings comes at you directly and it is foreshortened. It is a bit of an optical illusion and your brain often struggles with it. I love the shoe idea and we ran out of time since I wanted to have everyone pass their books for one more step but next time! I wrote down everyones name next to their shoe. Marianne brought some cool red pumps, Penny brought her Tennis shoes, Lauretta brought a favorite costume shoe, Gurutej brought her black tap shoes(some of us colored them), I had my crazy stitched flats and Karen brought a beautiful pair of dyed leather shoes. Each shoe was so different and these are the people walking with me in my life. These precious shoes carrying us in this journey of art together! I love it since its a little bit of all of you in my sketchbook. I am sorry the others missed out on our day!  For some reason I don't have two of the sketches, I hope Penny will post her sketches and I don't know who else I am missing?? Karens?

My Shoe page, it says My Journey with Friends, inspiring each other. I noticed I forgot the "h" on with so I had to fix it! I didn't say I could spell, just draw!  LOL

Gurutej's page, she made her tap shoes purple! I love it, can't wait to see it finished

Lauretta's Page, I like how she has lots of angles and her shadow under her shoe helps ground it. By drawing from different angles Lauretta has done a study in shoes, which is cool. Verses some of the others look like we drew a group of shoes. Another way to approach the same subject matter and make it interesting and different. 

Mariannes page, I love the red pump she brought, I love the way she drew it, a bit tilted and stylized!  Great Job!! See how my shoe is smaller and higher,  it looks like my shoe (blue) is farther away than the others? Do you know why? As things move away from us they get smaller and they move up on our page, they also get cooler. The warm colors on the color wheel bring forward, the cool colors help send it back. If you scroll back up and look at the other pages you will notice how the shoes look farther away the higher on the page they are. Just a little painting info for you! 

This month I would like you to find something that reminds you of your mom. It can be an object, a flower, anything that means mom to you. Now take your object and paint it in different positions, angles, colors, zoom in etc. You decide how many times you paint it, sketch it, do you put it in boxes on your page etc. Then next month we will talk about them.  We will also be back out in the garden next month celebrating Mother's Day, I will have a bit of a Tea party theme with Tea and sandwiches for all of us, should be fun!  Everything is blooming and we need to catch it so bring a hat and sunscreen. We will be meeting on May 11, the day before Mother's Day! Bring your "This makes me think of my Mom" paintings and we will share.

Check out my blog for a give-away!!

I am working on sewing projects for Spring Market, if anyone wants to sew give me a call!
Have a great month!