April is the time when nature gets creative

…and I have followed her lead. Earlier this month my wife and I went to the Kenosha Public Museum to see the Kenosha Unified District Wide Student Art Show. The exhibition featured artwork from area grade school kids, elementary through high school. The exhibit was open to the public and ran for three weeks, but this particular night that we went was the meet and greet event. Our niece, who is in high school, had am art piece on display in the show and we went to support her and to see all of the cool art.

There were sculptures, paintings, and drawings, oh my! I also saw a lot of really unusual and creative mixed media pieces. It was a really nice event. It was very colorful and inspiring. I smiled the whole time. I saw so much outstanding work there, but one of the most enjoyable to look at was the work from the elementary school kids, K-5. The imaginations and the colors were outstanding. Cute kitty cat and pumpkin drawings in a variety of styles and scenes. As I said, it made me smile and it was a fun event. It also reminded me of when I was a youngster and had artwork in art shows, and the work was shared, acknowledged, and sometimes rewarded. I think I might know the kids’ excitement that had work in the show. I also got to revisit creativity and art through the eyes and mind of a young person. I think I still have some of that kid in me when I create. I must. I hope so. At any rate, here are some pics from the meet and greet event. Maybe you’ll see what I mean. Check out all of that enthusiasm for expression on display, and the adventurous ideas.

I’ve made several new paintings over the past few weeks. I began filming timelapse videos showing the creation of these paintings. My first painting was a garden gnome standing next to some black eyed susans. I painted it with gouache paints on paper and named the piece “The Gardener”.

The next one, also gouache on paper, was a grasshopper.

And the painting after that was some bleeding heart flowers, which I painted on a larger stretched canvas with acrylic paints.

The bleeding hearts was a painting that I had started about a year ago, but I lost interest in it as I instead got into a different painting. So I decided to break it out and finish it finally, and I made a timelapse video of it, and started a YouTube channel to collect the footage and more timelapse videos of my paintings, for people that like that sort of thing. I think it’s interesting to watch a piece develop and morph in fast motion. I try to put nice music to the videos or some pleasant ambient background noise. You can watch the full videos from beginning to end on my youtube channel at www.youtube.com/@marjasallproductions. Subscribe to my channel and you’ll receive notifications of when I post new videos.

These new paintings I just mentioned, “The Gardener”, “A Grasshopper”, and “Bleeding Hearts” are now available as archival prints in my store.

I put together a slide show several weeks ago of most of my current collection of artworks. I think it’s an entertaining way to view the collection quickly in one place. Enjoy!

I’m about to begin work on another yet-unfinished painting and time-lapse video. I want to keep the creative momentum going. It’s another painting that I started about a year ago and I’ll reveal what it is when I release the video.

April is the time when nature gets creative. It’s planting season and nature comes back to life. Summer will be here before we know it. The warm weather gets me outdoors more, which means more energy, and that I will be surrounded by inspiration and new things to paint.

That’s all the news I have for the month of April. Peace to you and have a blessed day! Thank you for reading my blog!