Guest artist - Paula Strawn - paints baby's medical helmets

Artists paint to make the world a better place. Its not just canvases we can paint on, but also necessary, but drab things that an artists touch can lift peoples spirits. One of those things is baby medical helmets by artist Paula Strawn. The helmets are used to re-shape the skulls of babies born with flat head syndrome. It lifts the spirits of the familes  and hospital staff that work with them. And the kids waering them look in the mirror and see something cool on their head and will not try to take it off. Baby thinks he looks cool. There are adult head trauma patients who could benefit form this, too.
This is just one way artist can make the world around the a nicer, more colorful place. What do you see in your world that would benefit from your talent.

RFTFOSA - Blueberry Balsamic Glazed Chicken with Rosemary

Recipes For The Feeding of Starving Artists
This is an another occasional blog posting series. We artists gotta eat. If we are to paint well, we need to keep up our strength by eating well. I like to cook as well as paint, so here's another recipe for you to consider.
 Blueberry Balsamic Chicken with Rosemary with perogies and peas. I love chicken and fruit or berry combinations. This is one is delicious.

Art poster collection - part 4: I'd like my crayons back, please!

More thoughts expressed via "posters" collected from various sources that I hope will make you smile, encourage you, realize the importance of artistic expression, etc

Anatomy of a painting - Gifford Covered Bridge in Winter

I like to keep a record of how my paintings progress and occasionally share the. This is the photographic record of how my Gifford Covered Bridge In Winter progressed. It started with a photo from Vermont-Four-Seasons-Photography page on Facebook and went from there.
As you can see, my style is to block out things in black, let it dry and the paint over that, painting the entire background. The anything in front of that, I block out in black and paint over that. I'm trying for depth.

                                                                       final product

Start with the picture and go from there

from Marya Jan - 23 tips for making blogs conversational

Great post from Marya Jan from her writinghappiness blog giving us  23-top-tips-to-make-your-blog-posts-more-conversational. Blog writing can be a bore to our reader if it we don't make like we are having a conversation. If it gets lecture-like, your reader will make an early exit.
If my blog is going to be longish, what I do is I tell them to get a cup of tea or coffee and their favorite pastry and  get comfortable.

Lots of good tips here. I'll just write a few of them. Check out the rest

1. The most important word in blogging is “you”

Address you audience. Imagine you are sitting across the table from a really close friend, and write your post for them. 

3. Use contractions

6. Start your sentences with a conjunction

But that is not grammatically correct, you say. Well, this is one of those rules.

11. Avoid being formal

Instead of saying however, moreover, or furthermore, say but, so, or then. We are aiming for conversational here. Get a dialogue going.

Check out the rest. Make  reading fun and interesting and not

How a painting buyer framed my painting

It's nice to sell a painting, but its also nice to see how it's displayed after it leaves your hands and goes out into the world. I've also given some paintings as wedding gifts and have seen the results in my friends' homes. As previously posted, I sold my Babbs Covered Bridge in Winter painting to a couple from church, Rob and Suki Blumenstock.. They got it nicely framed and here is the result.