Final Friday Announcement and the County Fair

I'm helping to organize a Final Friday Art Walk in my community. I'm excited that things seem to be coming together with our planning. We've never tried anything like this in our small town but we are hoping for a good turn out and hope to hold Art walks at least a few times a year. A few members of our Arts group, Jackson County Arts got together last week to make a giant sign (6x8 feet) to advertise the event. We had fun painting circles. The sign will be displayed in our Chamber of Commerce's window.
Did I mention I'll also be showing some of my artwork at Final Friday? My buddy, Amy, has a photography studio which she also wants to function as an Art gallery. I will be one of 3 (or 4) featured artists in her gallery. We are working on getting artists to demonstrate, businesses around our town square to showcase some art, and have some live music lined up. You can read about the Art Walk and my interview on Amy's blog: http://cyphersphotographyblog.com/?p=1881

 I had fun getting things ready for the county fair this year. Jackson County Arts wanted to reuse the Vincent van Gogh head I made for our scarecrow last fall so we came up with a theme of "Crazy about the Arts" (we didn't mean it to be insensitive...) and used sunflowers to showcase different branches of the Arts. We had sunflowers representing music, painting, photography, fiber arts, and writing/drawing.

I also made a little display to educate people about Van Gogh and hopefully help them understand that we didn't just use sunflowers because we're in Kansas. :) We were proud to earn the Grand Champion ribbon.

I always enjoy checking out the other displays at the fair. I was amazed by some of the quilts made by 4H'ers.

 I entered some artwork in Open Class just for fun, including a painted picture frame in Crafts, some flower photos in Photography, 

 and my Mixed Media Cicada Mandala in Fine Arts.

I hope when my son is old enough, he'll want to participate in 4H. Do any of you participate in your County Fair? We'll be enjoying the parade tonight in 102 degree weather, which considering the last couple weeks, isn't terrible!

Vincent Van Scarecrow

This is the scarecrow that I put together for a contest in my hometown.  I am involved with Jackson County Arts and this is the idea I came up with for our entry this year.  The body was already made from last year and while I doubt that Van Gogh was over 6 feet tall like our scarecrow, it worked.  I made a paper mache head starting with a brown paper bag stuffed with newspaper.  I added more newspaper and lots of masking tape to finish the base.   I used liquid starch (that's all I had at school) to make the shell.  I looked at several different self portraits of Van Gogh as a guide.  I figured since it was a scarecrow and kind of a caricature I didn't need to put pressure on myself to make it totally realistic.  I tried to leave brush strokes and not over-blend the paint.  I found three colors of yarn that I combined to  make his hair.  After thinking it was going to take FOREVER to cut the yarn into little pieces, I finally realized that I could wrap all three strands around my hand to form a loop and cut lots of pieces at once.  I added a gauze bandage around his head after I checked to make sure I was covering the correct ear.  It bugs me a tiny bit that the "parts" don't match but I was just pulling the most recognizable parts from different paintings as inspiration.  I even made a quick painting for the occasion- Starry Night over the Pumpkin Patch.  After I stuck his head on my dog decided he was bad news and started growling and barking at the scarecrow.

We set up the scarecrow last night but had to take the accessories down so they wouldn't blow away.  He looked really creepy without the supplies- like he was going to get you!  It was pretty cool to see people stopping to pose by Vincent and I'm happy to say that we won 1st place!  I'm already trying to think of ideas for next year.  I have lots, I just need to figure out which are easy enough for people who are not art history buffs to figure out.