Our trip to New Orleans

Here are a few sights and sounds from our trip to New Orleans. We had a little reunion with the family on  Memorial Day weekend. As you can see from the picture above there was a lot of seafood to enjoy the entire weekend.

                

My aunt, mom and family went strolling down Bourbon Street, and other downtown shops and galleries in the heart of New Orleans. The old cobblestone streets are still filled with charm and interesting characters.

We visited this gallery filled with cat themed art.

Michael and Bethany enjoying the sights.

My cousin Michael's backyard barbeque was fantastic.

My husband and I at the banquet.

A montage of my grandparents, great grandparents and aunts and uncles.

Arts in the Park

 

Saturday morning started early assisting the volunteers with the festival. I helped the volunteers with getting the artist and entertainers get to the right location. My favorite part of the of the day is when the entertainers arrived.

  
There were opera singers, jugglers, and musicians to entertain the crowds throughtout the day.

Vickie Johnson is the president of the North Gwinnett Arts Association. They are the organizers of the show.

A view of our city hall from the park on this beautiful day.

A fountain keeps the kids cool during the heat of the day.

Concentric Circles

I decided to do a painting exercise of the famous painter Wassily Kandinsky's Concentric Circles.

I used a ruler to create the boxes.

I started painting the circles in each square using acrylic paint.

Here is a completed square.

Just a few more finishing touches.

It was fun replicating this famous painting. This is a good excercise to better understand color and improve your painting ability. You should try to reproduce one of your favorite works of art.

Barefoot in the Park Festival

I was able to attend a local festival in an Atlanta suburb just northeast of the city. 

I had the pleasure of meeting artist Larry Smith. His tent was filled with beautiful paintings. He and his wife also teach art classes.

Here you see these beautiful ceramic pieces. There was all sorts of wonderful talent on this gorgeous, but hot day.

Duluth has this beautiful city hall that has that old style charm. It actually is only several years old. There is also an amphitheatre that had an old style jazz band playing while I was strolling the show.

If you are ever in the Atlanta area come visit the city of Duluth. There are shops, restaurants, antique stores and galleries and a community theatre that line the main street of the city.

Summer Plants

 I have been adding a few plants around the outside of my home. I am actually going to try to grow some some strawberries and maybe some blueberries on my deck. It seems like more people are starting to have a little garden in their backyards in order to save a little money at the grocery store.

 This hanging plant is on my front porch. I added a few new plants to this basket for the summer season. I look forward to all the fun times and events to come during the summer months.

The winner of the notecard from My Savior is Zuda Gay. Congratulations!

Blog Feature: My Savior

My feature this month is a talented photographer and team member. Sue's shop is called My Savior. She has been selling on Etsy since 2009. She became interested in photography on her 10th birthday when her parents gave her a Kodak Brownie camera. They were a picture taking family and between the black and whites photos and the old movie reel films, Sue was always involved with some sort of photographing.

As a teenager Sue would go take photos at a local psychedelic shop in her town. She had to come there with her camera and take all types of crazy shots. It was colorful art to her.

Sue is most inspired by God's creations. Everywhere she looks there is something that she wants to capture by her Master Creator.

Sue is an ephemera collector. Paper items of all kinds. Postcards, greeting cards, bookmarks, tags, anything made out of paper. Her other interests are crocheting, and creating collages. She has some online friends who travel the world and send her postcards and is thrilled to receive them.

The ultimate message she would like to convery is that no matter who you are, we are all saved by the Grace of God.

The area she lives in is very influential in her photography. The mountains, the woods, and the flowers. Although she used to love taking photos of NYC but that is hard for her now with limited mobility.

Sue is offering one of my readers this beautiful pink floral note card. Just leave a comment for a chance to win. The winner will be announced April 30th.

Atlanta Dogwood Festival

This morning was especially gloomy for the first day of the Dogwood Festival. Fortunately the weather held up, so I decided to go downtown to check out all the beautiful art.

I happened to bump into abstract artist Linda McCarrey. We were neighbors at a festival twelve years ago in Birmingham. Linda's work is so gorgeous.

Some of her paintings have mixed media elements in her work.

I had the pleasure of meeting photographer Joan Schulte from Kentucky. She had many vintage suitcases in her display. They added so much charm to her booth.

This artist had very unusual asemblage dolls on display.

The festival was perfect since it wasn't shoulder to shoulder people like it will be tomorrow and Sunday. Hopefully the weather will be okay for all those attending.

If your in the Atlanta area go check out this great show of talented fine artist and craftsman.