Week 17 - Grace's Art News

Ah yes it's true, our little artist had her work debuted in the "Sarasota County School Art Show" this week. You may remember her eagle from (this) post, well apparently another one of her pieces had been on display at school too. This one being her "family portrait" which adorned a wall in the principals office - framed and all!

So your probably wondering how Grace's art went from being displayed on the wall at school to being selected as a piece for the art show. Well, according to her art teacher, among all the art created and displayed during the school year, fifty pieces were "randomly" selected and Grace's happened to be one of them.

To celebrate this special accomplishment, we along with Meme and Pop, were present on the opening night of the show hosted at the Sarasota Art Center. Upon our arrival we located Grace's drawing and were astonished to see that it had a "Best of the Best" ribbon hanging from the corner - way to go Grace! After that we spent time looking at all of the amazing art created by some very talented children from our local school district. Oh in case your interested, you can see all of the amazing art for yourself, as the show runs through the middle of this month.




And in other art related news, Grace just participated in another artist trading card swap. She traded her tiny drawings with five other children from around the country.

As you can see she drew six different images, wanting to save the extra one for herself. She had such a hard time deciding which one to keep that it delayed the shipping a day beyond the deadline, oops. She eventually chose the "drawing of a drawing" (one the far left) as she had never drawn anything like that before.



So there you have it, some pretty exciting news related to art around these parts!

Week 16 - Fun with Eggs

Even though we don't celebrate Easter in a religious sense, Grace still enjoys all of the egg-related activities that surround the holiday. So this past week we've spent time having fun with eggs (and bunnies too).....


.....from making puppets


.....to drawing and dying


.....and lets not forget the traditional egg hunt

Ah yes, I do believe we've had a great time celebrating the season upon us. May you have a wonderful Easter!

Week 15 - Blueberry Picking

This morning we headed to Barventa Farms, where we met Meme and Pop for some blueberry pickin'. The blueberries were ready much earlier this year than last and seemed a bit more abundant too. Grace and I picked three and a half pounds worth of little blue gems, then the heat started to get the best of us. Here are some pictures....






I do believe this will continue to be a yearly trip, as you just can't beat locally grown, freshly picked blueberries!

Week 14 - Wondrous Webs

Grace and I are making more of an effort to walk to school each morning. It seems like a great way to start the day don't you think? The fresh air, sights and sounds of nature, a bit of exercise.... oh yes, it does make a wonderful day starter I tell you.

Here are some pictures that were taken on a particularly foggy morning. We were amazed at how many spider webs we saw along our journey. Thankfully, we had a bit of extra time to examine them up close. Grace thought the second web pictured looked like a piece of intricate lace, with all its dewy drops along the silky strands - it was by far our favorite to look at.





Come Monday morning we'll be at it again, in search of wondrous webs and the like - hooray for our morning walks to school!

Week 13 - Art Class

Grace just completed her latest session of "Discovering Creativity" at the Ringling College of Art and Design. I must say that Dean and I are quite smitten with the projects she's created over the past five weeks - she really stepped outside of her artistic comfort zone. Here are some of the treasures.....


Looking out the window for inspiration - she sketched a tree.


Her sculpture of a mother cardinal and nest using recycled materials, along with a poem she was inspired to write.


The altered art box she made with many horse-themed clippings. I plan to modge podge it since it surely will be used to store a plethora of treasures.


Her first cartoon, it's about Al the alligator and the importance of caring for our environment.


And last but not least, my personal favorite, her spring themed watercolor.

Sadly, Grace will have to wait until the fall for the art sessions to resume. But don't worry, in the meantime she'll be busy creating at home, perched in her favorite seat at the kitchen table with her sketchbook in hand. Ah yes, art created by young minds is the best, don't you think?