Art, Chalk, and Charity

I was lucky enough to escape LA for Memorial Day Weekend and headed up the coast to one of my most favorite places on earth: Santa Barbra, CA. Besides walking the pier, and shopping on State Street, I went to the Santa Barbra Mission where I discovered the 26th annual Madonnari Chalk Festival. Every year this event draws thousands of people (25 thousand to be exact) and artists create beautiful works on the pavement before the Mission. Madonnari benefits the Children’s Creative Project, a nonprofit arts education program of the Santa Barbara County Education Office. The project serves 50,000 children in more than 100 schools with visual and performing arts workshops and performances throughout Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties. I loved that this event was not only fun for everyone there, but it served a huge purpose of supporting art education.

Wave Painting for Ryan

In addition to flowers, I get quite a few requests for wave paintings... and I have to say... I really love doing them. Playing with variations of blue, green, and purple... its amazing how many different colors go into these pieces. I started a wave painting a few weeks ago and I documented the process (per usual) and here it is!

Toilet Paper Roll + Scenic Collage = Amazing! by Anastassia Elias

I don't have the patience or skill when it comes to very small, intricate works. But I can always appreciate people who have this special gift of working in delicate media. So I was surprised and delighted to discover French artist Anastassia Elias, who not only paints, draws, and sculpts (a triple threat), but has a series of these toilet paper scenes. They are charming and fun!

Color Color Color

Color is inspiring my world right now.

Orange and Pink Peony

I have been pretty busy these past few months... one of the many projects I've been up to has been creating works for my online shop on Etsy. I realized I had no work to sell since I had been tied up with commission requests. So I've begun a 10 week project in creating over a dozen works to sell. One particular piece entitled "Orange and Pink Peony" was a week long painting process that I documented. Below are the stages of how it all came together. * note: Usually I start a painting with an image or color in mind, and slowly tweak the picture along until I get the right shape and contrast. Then I layer on the paint until I see its time to stop.

My Etsy Shop: www.etsy.com/shop/karlinmeehan