Sculpting and Painting

Daisy was thinking about something like Color Me Mine for her birthday, but it is super pricey when you get everyone together to paint. I thought about letting Daisy paint her own piece and making everyone else share, but my girls are very territorial when it comes to art.

But fortune shined on us and a neighbor who is a professional sculptor let us come over for the evening and experiment. His name is Nick Ryan. He is amazing! Check out his website. At his house there are bronze sculptures all over the place. (Kind of like my house and crosstitches, but so much cooler.) He has a little studio downstairs and he had clay laid out for each person.

We started by  making shapes and getting used to the feel of clay in our hands. I know there are all different kinds of clay. This one never hardens all the way. It will get fairly stiff and hold its shape, but if you put it in your warm hands, it will soften up and be mold-able again.

After we made our many shapes, we could make whatever we wanted. Mr. Ryan suggested an elephant. (He has done a few classes down there with families and they all make elephants.) My family always has their own ideas, so it didn't surprise me in the least when we didn't make a single elephant the entire evening. But we did make some fun other things.

Daisy made...a daisy.

Tyler made some interesting birds. (An owl and Woody Woodpecker?)

Oddly, I did birds as well. (We weren't sitting by each other or looking at what the other person was doing. Clearly, Tyler and I are starting to think alike.)

June was working on a really cool palm tree. She didn't get to finish.

Robyn was given some extra instruction. Mr. Ryan could tell that she has background in art. She was working on a person, so he was giving her hints. He also had these cool stands so your piece could remain upright on its own.

Recognize the dress? Can you tell who that is? (Aurora.)

Ivory made a couple things and then smooshed them back into a ball, which later became a baseball.

Pearl made many things. At one point she had five different pieces lined up, but she also took them apart. But I like her little snakes that spell out June.

The Ryans are both very talented. Besides sculpture, they both paint and in the studio were several paintings as well. It was such a fun night and they even let us keep the clay to bring home. So neat.

Now, let's switch gears and move over to painting. We have enjoyed many Paint Nites and so it was added to our date list again this year. It is still a little hectic trying to find a evening that works well, but we managed. In fact, we even drove to the wrong location and still managed to make it to Paint Nite before they painted the first stroke. (Granted, we missed the Paint Nite oath, but I've taken it enough to know the consequences.)

Here we go. Can you tell what we are making?

Maybe this will give it away.

Did you guess seascape? Tyler and I did very different paintings. He imagined the scene from very far away. You can see little footprints going away as if the word is very large. Mine is up close with my little starfish next to it.

Everyone wrote different sayings as well. I think the original said 'Dream' but 85% of the people wrote something else. So it was very fun to go around and look at the all the different paintings.

It is always great to hang out with Tyler. He is good company.

I would call this another successful paint nite. (This was actually the same lady who did the desert scene that Mom and I did. She is very cool and talented.)