Just a few shots from our hike this morning off the Blue Ridge Parkway. Although short, it is pretty steep. Great view from the top. Hubby is on the left and friends from Wilmington on the right. So little time, so much to see!

Mountain Trip

Up in the mountains near Blowing Rock for the weekend. Got some great shots of fungi on a stump. Hoping to get some more hiking again today.

New Series

These are 2 paintings I did near the end of the week at TICA. I really liked them. I used ocean charts as the collage and a red underpainting which shows through in several places. These remind me of my trips on our sailboat.

More New Art

I love the swirls in this one so I named it "Classical Swirls". I always have trouble coming up with names. If you can think of a better one, let me know.

More new work from TICA. "Bubba Gump's Nightmare". Need I say more.

New Art!

Here is the piece I finished next. Same basic process, but I added some stamping in this one. I try to incorporate the bits of collage into the paint so it is difficult to tell where the paper starts and the paint begins.

Here is one of the first images I did at TICA. I start by finding interesting collage materials, then glue them down to start my composition. I add underpainting in a complementary color. Since I work in acrylics and like to scrapethe surface to let the underpainting peek through, I complete small areas at a time. Otherwise the paint dries too quickly and I can't scrape out areas. I finish the painting by adding small spots of color to bring out areas and add detail.

Home At Last

Flew in last night from Chicago. What an amazing week! For those of you that are HS art teachers, you should definitely try to get in. Although I am exhausted, I had a great time and learned a lot about contemporary art. I have a ton of pictures to download and organize today. I will try to get some up later for all to see. I also got some new artwork finished. I am extremely happy with the last few pieces I did. I see a new direction on its way. Hope everyone had a great 4th!

So Far In Chicago

Things are going well here at TICA. We get lectures on contemporary art 3 times a day. Most of the time they are quite interesting. Today at lunch we had a presentation from an artist named Sarah Sze. She does the most amazing installations! I would love to see her work in  person. I am also getting a lot of time in the studio. So far I have finished 5 small paintings and gotten a lot done on the first 15 pages of a new altered book. I will try to get some pictures up later this week. I just found the computer lab in this building today so I could take some time to post. We are going to the contemporary art museum this afternoon and have another lecture tonight. Looking forward to it.

Hello from Chicago

I'm at the Art Institute of Chicago this week for their Teacher Institute for Contemporary Art. So far they have kept us all very busy. We are getting lectures on contemporary art during lunch and dinner as well as studio time during the day. The city itself is beautiful! Several of us walked out to the lakefront last night. The whole area is one giant marina. The boats are so beautiful. The dorm room that I am staying in looks out over the street. The view at night with all the lights is awesome. The first night everyone was awakened by an incredibly shrill alarm. Turns out someone had burned some food in one of the rooms. Nothing like walking down 8 flights of stairs and standing on the streets of Chicago at 11 PM in your jamies! Got to go and head over to the studio building. It is behind the museum. Hope to get some new work done this week.

Relaxing

Enjoying some time at the beach. Weather has been beautiful. Only rains at night.

New website is UP!!!

Finally got my new website up and running. One glitch with the contact form. Will try to get that taken care of ASAP. I found the template online and fell in love with it. Not sure about the music. Let me know if you like it as much as I do. Here is the link: http://www.melissawalkerartist.com