July 11th & July 15th, Our 9th and 10th Mural Painting Sessions

Congrats to Judy and Bob who became new Grandparents on Monday, July 11th. We welcome their new granddaughter and anxiously await her photos!

I am combining our days here on our blog, they are starting to blend together like our paint and our canvases. All of our canvas panels need to flow into each other to keep continuity. It is a challenge going from one to another, but actually fun to come up with ways to create that flow.

The Community center summer campers were pretty quiet today, just a few little heads popping in every now and then. Dawn did have a couple of her students stop in, Bill Sweet and Joseph A. Gomez. They both said watching us paint was like getting a free lesson. Both great guys giving us wonderful encouragement.

Friday July 15th was a very quiet day, Dawn and I would have loved to have painted on for hours more, but our legs and backs let us know when it is time to clean our brushes, along with Rob Slezak, he always drops in to see how much more time we need, and generously gives us a little more, and a little more....then he carefully lifts our panels off to 'hide' them for the weekend. The Community Center has numerous activities going all the time, from our beloved campers, to dance classes and weddings etc, plus this weekend they are even hosting a 'garage sale'. Then on Monday our canvases appear again, no easy task being 8' high and 6' wide. It was definitely a comedy act when we first tried to move them ourselves.

 We are progressing nicely, Dawn adding 'creatures' while I am about finished with my manatee family. Now I am on to the lagoon fish, grasses, dolphins etc. We look forward to Judy's return...we miss you!

 I would like to thank Kathy Staiger for generously lending us her wealth of research material, and Lionel Ogilvie for sharing his knowledge of fish. I am learning which fish are in the Indian River Estuary and which are in the ocean. Keeping all the plants, animals and fish accurate to their location is no easy task, we a fortunate to have artists, friends and professionals in assorted fields assisting us.

Well, here we are at the end of our 10th session, weighted down by the accoutrements of our trade, we have turned into the Bag Ladies of the Arts, otherwise known as BLA....yeah I know bla, bla, bla. :)

Christine Thomas, BLA Blogger