Jeanne Anderson Watercolors

For our last project of the semester, I asked my 4 high school art students to research a famous artist and choose one of his or her famous works to recreate. The end results were beautiful - although not all of the students are done yet.

I've finally gotten back to painting after the Thanksgiving holiday. I'm currently working on one of two commissioned pieces for a friend - photos next week - hopefully! I also did a commission piece for another friend, Orchids. It's a small(ish) 8x10" for her bathroom. I can't wait to see it framed and hung. Lastly, I painted a western tanager. I've never seen this bird but a customer at my booth at the Shemer Art Center's Arizona Arts Festival, asked me to paint one. I think it turned out beautiful and I would love to see one some day.

I had an amazing weekend at the Shemer Art Center's Arizona Arts Festival (Nov. 4 & 5, 2017). Many thanks for the support of my husband, Darrell,and my friends,Sussy Salazar and Heidi Landis. Darrell was available to set up my haul in and set up my display materials on Saturday morning and Sussy and Heidi were my sales assistants. Sussy helped me tear down and pack up all my stuff on Sunday afternoon. I COULDN'T HAVE DONE IT WITHOUT YOU! I sold quite a few hand-painted watercolor cards, several matted original paintings and a few acrylic pours. More importantly, I got myself out there, made connections with customers and introduced Phoenix to my art. I'm so grateful for the opportunity and look forward to next year!

So many things are happening this week.I did get accepted into the Shemer Arizona Arts Festival (yay!!), so I've been been very busy preparing for the show. I ordered (and received) metal grid display panels, shopping bags for customers, customized bookmarks for giveaways, plus many more items. I'm hopeful that I'll be ready for the weekend. The show is this weekend, November 4 & 5, from 10a-4p in Scottsdale at the Shemer Art Center. In the midst of all this, I've made two trips, one to see my daughter and her husband in Connecticut and the second to see my parents and celebrate my father's 86th birthday. It's been busy, to say the least!!! This is a photo of the painting I created for my daughter Maria and her husband Alex in their apartment in CT.

I know. I paint a lot of flowers. In my defense, I enjoy it, they make me happy. So what if I can't paint people, horses or buildings, there are plenty of people who can. I've painted about 25 greeting cards since the weekend. Lots and lots of flowers!

I've been trying to put some new life into my art business lately. I've made a schedule for myself. Mondays I work on class planning, Tuesdays I update my Etsy shop (www.etsy.com/IndigoStreetStudio) and Wednesdays I try to update my blog (wow, look at that, a day early this week! Yay Me!!!) On Thursdays and Fridays I am teaching classes at our church to homeschooled students and to some lovely adults. In addition to these activities, I've been trying to make sketchbook entries, although admittedly, I'm less disciplined with this. Recently, I made the bold decision to submit my artwork for the Shemer Arizona Arts Festival. If I am juried into the show, I will be showing and selling my artwork at Shemer Art Center (in Scottsdale) on November 4 & 5. I'm feeling a little overwhelmed with having submitted my artwork, but I am confident that if this is a good step forward (or backward) for my business. So, while I wait to be notified of whether I've been accepte

My high school art class has been working on watercolor flower paintings for 2 weeks now. First they chose a reference photo from my stash and transferred the image to 140# Arches cold pressed paper. We kept the image on the smaller side to make it more manageable, 9 x 6". Each student has their own unique style and it is a blast to watch the paintings take shape.

I saw a post on Getting My Art Wings Back (http://myartwings.blogspot.com/2012/12/grade-6-patterned-tree-designs.html) about patterned tree designs and I thought I would try this with my middle school class. So far this semester we have talked a little about color theory - primary, secondary, complimentary and autologous colors. We've talked about tints (adding white) and shades (adding black. They've worked with acrylic and watercolors so far as well as doing weekly pencil drawings in their own sketchbooks. This lesson seemed to tie in a lot of the color theory, the acrylic painting techniques and the simple drawings that we've been working on. I forgot to take photos during class (well, I was busy!). First I let them pick any color (except really light colors like yellow or aqua). They were to paint a gradient wash over the whole paper (12X18") from darkest on top down to lightest on bottom. They added black to their color for the darkest shades and decreased tha

Thought you might like to see the paintings that I made for my sister, Caroline. She and her husband Tim had their kitchen redone. It's a gorgeous, functional kitchen. I feel privileged that my painting get to grace the wall above the sink! :)

This is my most recent attempt at acrylic pour painting. I used a different method - Youtube is an endless source of methods. It didn't turn out quite like I wanted it to but the experience helped me for next time.

These two are for my sister, Caroline. I gave her a painting last year and she asked for 2 coordinating pieces for her kitchen. Happy to oblige!

Working on a commission piece for a friend. This pineapple painting has been popular over the past few years. I love working with watercolor!First I lay down a base of yellow and then build up the colors from there. I bought quinacridone gold last year and have just now begun using it. It's beautiful. Anyway, here's my progress so far.

I've been fascinated with the acrylic pouring paintings on Instagram and have been working up my nerve to try them. I've watched a lot of youtube videos but there's nothing like getting your hands dirty and gaining experience. I tried a couple this past week and another today. SO FUN!!! I don't know how I could adapt this to the classroom, the mess would be outrageous, so I'm going to have to just enjoy this myself.

Greetings, So glad to be back!! I'm trying to resurrect this blog and commit to posting weekly. I will be teaching again this Fall (5 weeks away!), so I thought I would try to get in the habit of weekly posts before the class prep gets too busy. I've been trying to update my Etsy shop. If you haven't visited it yet, please take a look: www.etsy.com/shop/IndigoStreetStudio I am also trying to update my instagram account every few days: @indigostreetstudio Thank you for stopping in. Here's a little of what I've been up to.