One of the things I enjoy most about teaching kids is all their enthusiasm and creative spirits. There are days when the creativity gets quite spirited and crosses over to goofing off. Most of my young students have a lot of pressure on them from their teachers at school and sometimes cancel art class to get overloaded homework done of cram for a test. I like to keep the art classes relaxed and fun for them so they can escape some of that pressure for a few hours. As you can see from the photos below there is a lot of relaxing going on in art class.
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2011 was an active fun year for Art E Studio. As mentioned in my last post, many of the students entered their art in shows around the area. Such as the "Congressional Art Competition" for high school students. The three students who entered that competition were Tiana Smith, Jenny Zhu and Valerie Rominek. Tiana won second place. Jenny and Valerie tied for third. Next came the "Silverdollar Fair" with six students entering their work. All of them walked away with ribbons. Jenny Zhu won "Best of Show" with her beautiful turtle oil painting. You can see all the work entered by going to the "Current and Past Events" page on the left side of this screen and click on "Silverdollar Fair 2011".

The CN&R news paper put out a call to artists to paint their Newspaper Boxes. Seven of my students rose to challenge and worked as a team to paint one. You can view their progress by going to the "Current and Past Events" page and click on "CN&R Newspaper Box". The finished Box found a new home in front of Art Etc in Downtown Chico.

Art Fiesta was another fun and very successful event we participated in last May. I had a double booth, one was for the kids to create arty at. The other was to display my students work and sell my artist brush caddies.

The month of July was dedicated to my hard working students. I created a "Student Art Show" for them. The Studio walls were adorned with lots of beautiful paintings in oil and acrylic. We had a "People Choice Award" competition were everyone who came in to view the show was asked to vote for their favorite three paintings. But in order to vote they had to pay a dollar. The top three winners won the money. Take a look under "Current and Past Events" "July 2011 Student Art Show" to see their work and the winners.

The "Small World, Small Works" show and "Christmas Preview" were the last two events of the year. I don't have images in the "Current and Past Events" for the "Small World, Small works" show but there are plenty for you to view for "Christmas Preview 2011"

I want to thank all my wonderful, talented, hard working students and their supportive families for making 2011 a year to remember. Watching all of my students, young and old(er) grow and achieve so many successes has made me very proud to be their art teacher. The challenges we all faced this past year has also taught me a lot for which I'm very grateful.







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With so many events happening the last two months, it's hard to believe December is nearly over. 2011 was a great year for Art E Studio. The student base grew to just over 40 students a week. Many of the students entered shows and won awards. Christmas Preview was a huge success with crowds of people viewing the live painting in the window. I wanted this, our last year, to be very remediable for both my students and myself and it was. 

Now the New Year is just days away from starting and I'm thinking of the goals I need to set for 2012. Some of them concern this website, some the studio and some are for my personal art. All of these goals focus on growth and change. The biggest change being the move to Maui this coming summer. I'm excited, scared and sad all at the same time.  Excited to see a dream come true. Scared of the unknown changes that will occur from this move and very sad to leave all my wonderful students here in Chico. They are all so special and talented and I love everyone of them.

2012 will be the year of great change and I'm ready for it. Are you?
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Here it is Thursday morning the 17th of November and we are just days away from Christmas Preview. The students have been working on paintings for our winter show in the studio and the big group project for the window. I think this is going to be the best Christmas Preview of them all. I'm excited for Sunday and our BIG event. I've really enjoyed putting this one together. We started planning and preparing for it back in July. Many of the students did their Christmas paintings early to ensure they would be done on time. The big 40 x 60 group painting will be raffled off at the end of Christmas Preview. Come in and buy your tickets early or wait for the event. 
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You're Invited 11/08/2011
 
This Friday night the businesses on Third Street Downtown Chico are having a special event from 5pm to 8pm in honor of you our customers. Each business has planed something special, most will have refreshments and some will have live music. My business, Art E Studio will be open. I'm offering a once in a life time deal to all my customers. I've marked down eleven of my acrylic paintings to $11. The original prices range from $35. to $95. I've also set aside six of my 16x20 oil paintings and have marked them at $111. for this night only. These paintings sell for $720 each regularly. What's with all the $11's? Well this Friday is 11-11-11 and I thought it would be fun to play off those numbers.

You can check out what the other businesses are doing by going to What's happening On Third Street on facebook.



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Progress 10/24/2011
 
Here are a few pictures of the progress on the Christmas Preview painting my studio kids are doing this year. There are 13 students working on this painting. Each one is assigned a special part of it.  The images below show Ciena, Valerie and Karli working on their portion.
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The older I get the faster time flies. It feels like it was just a few months ago we were busy working on Christmas Preview 2010 and here it is time to do it again. This year our window project will be a winter landscape 40 x 60 size. I have a lot of excited new students who are looking forward to painting in the window this year. We are gathering images and ideas for this painting everyday. The Canvas is stretched and ready for the underpainting and sketch. Both of which I hope to have done this week. I'll be adding pictures as we progress so watch for them in the "Current and Past Events" page on this website.
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I’m writing this post because I really want to know how many ways your life is effected by art and why it is important to you. Do you even think about it? How many different ways does it effect you?

Art comes in so many forms. Some you might not even think of as art. When you go to a fine restaurant and taste a beautifully prepared meal do you think about the talented chef who made it for you? Or what about the person who decorated that beautiful birthday cake or wedding cake. What about the clothes you ware. Did you know someone had to design and sew them before you could ware them? What about the music you listen to or the movies and television shows you watch, or the dancers and actors you see on stage.

How many other artistic, creative things can you think of?


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Sophie started coming to Art E Studio this past winter. She has completed 5 paintings and has done a fantastic job. This featured painting is of Mona Liza. Sophie and her friends are making a video and needed a Mona Liza painting as a prop but this one had to have the face cut out so her friend could put her face in instead. Sophie worked hard on creating this painting. Her attention to detail really paid off and she learned a lot.

My younger students got into the act by painting Mona Liza paintings too. They all came up with some very clever versions of the worlds most famous painting. After they finished their master pieces each of the girls posed with Sophie's painting. Mona Liza never looked so good!

Check out the "Featured Artist, work in progress" page here on this website to see photos of Sophie creating her painting and to see how cute Mona Liza is with her new faces.
Picture
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Art E Studio's first "Student Art Show" was a great success. All month long people came into the studio to view and vote on 25 paintings. Many of them had a hard time deciding who to vote for. Yesterday I worked on tallying all the ballots and came up with our three winners. Jenny Zhu took first place with 25 votes. Annie Fang got second place with 24 votes and Carissa Leiber took third with 19 votes. I'll have pictures of the winners  next week.

Now that July is over and the show behind us, we are now working on Christmas or Winter themed paintings for Christmas Preview. I know it seams to early to start thinking about Christmas Preview but these months are flying by. The Kids start school Aug 10th and they will all be busy with settling into new routines that may take them away from their art classes here at Art E Studio. Giving them a head start will help take some of the pressure off, i hope. We will be doing another Student Art Show for Christmas Preview and again you will be able to vote for your favorite painting.

That's all the news for now.

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