Barebones Halloween Extravaganza

This year is the 19th Annual Barebones Halloween Extravaganza. Each year, a large group of artists, dancers, puppeteers, musicians and lots and lots of other volunteers put on a show around Halloween. I have been meaning to get to one of these shows for years now and am so excited that we decided to go last Sunday (when it was warm!)  It did not disappoint! You can expect to see fire-eaters and dancers, really cool and huge puppets, dancing, aerialists, and lots of stuff that is cool but hard to categorize. If you enjoy the creative hippy vibe of the May Day Parade then this will be right up your alley.  

Seating is on the ground or on hay bales and its recommended that you dress for cold weather.  There are three shows left - this coming Saturday and Sunday evenings and one on Halloween - each show is followed by dancing to a local band and free food provided by Sisters Camelot. Suggested donation is $5-$20 but it is a pay-what-you-can type of event. Lots more info here: http://barebonespuppets.org/

The name of the show this year is "Chick-a-BOOM" and the narrative roughly follows the idea of the Big Bang and the cycle of creation and destruction, birth and death.

My sister took these pics during the show. It was hard to get good ones since it is a low-light environment.

Thirteen Days of Halloween

 I am going to be posting thirteen days of Halloween fun! Yes, this will bring us a little past Halloween so that I can do some recap post-holiday. Here are some drawings I did in Microsoft Paint!

Collaborative Creation 3 (Blue Woman)

Here is the final painting that Melanie and I worked on. Melanie drew this woman....

...and I added color with watercolor....

...and Melanie added the finishing details.

Collaborative Creation #2 (Landscape)

Here's another of the paintings Melanie and I worked on last weekend, I started with by laying the color for the background an drawing some plants in with crayon...

...then Melanie drew these trees and leaves...

and I added a wash of blue to the background and some brighter colors for the leaves...

and Melanie finished up by adding some more detail for the leaves and plants in colored pencil.

Collaborative Creation (Monster!)

As I mentioned, my sister Melanie and I are the featured artists this month at Articulture's retail store: http://www.articulture.org/featured-artist

We did a painting demonstration last Saturday and worked on some pieces together. We've never done that before but it was lots of fun! Here is one of the pieces we did and the different stages.

I started the background (above) by laying down some bright splotches of color.


Melanie drew in this cute monster guy.........

.......and I finished up the background by adding some contrasting cool colors. What do you think? I think he looks great!

Kaleidoscope

Did you know there are different types of kaleidoscopes? I got this one at Target on clearance ($3.50) and have playing around with it. It's called a teleidoscope. Here is the definition of a teleidoscope according to this super informative website on kaleidoscopes:

"There is no endpiece containing color, only a clear lens that turns everything it is pointed toward into a kaleidoscopic image. It’s been said that the ultimate value of the teleidoscope is the potential each viewer has to see the artistic value in his own environment."

The website sells some beautiful kaleidoscopes in addition to giving the history of them. Here is a link to the part of the website that tells about the inventor, Sir David Brewster.

http://www.kaleidoscopesusa.com/about/sir-david-brewster/

I took these photos that show what you see looking through the lens. I thought they were pretty. They remind me of models of different viruses or bacteria or something under a miscroscope. They also slightly resemble photos from outerspace (nebulae and such).

What do you think?

Farmers Market in the City

Last Thursday I walked over to the farmers market on Nicollet Mall during my lunch. It was a beautiful, sunny day so I took a few pictures as I went. The market season is winding down. The farmers look cold, bundled up against the wind. There are piles of gourds, pumpkins and squash everywhere. There are still some cold weather crops like potatoes, onions, garlic, some apples, and brussel sprouts. Winter is definitely on its way. There are more people taking the skyway to escape the chill and fewer food trucks parked in front of our building.