pamgarrison

Painting Petals class starts tomorrow!!!!!!

My Painting Petals class starts tomorrow!!!! Woohoo! Aiyee! Yippee! 

I have been working on it for a year and I can't believe the day has finally come. I'm checking and re-checking and tweaking away. I want it to be perfect from minute one, (and I know there is no perfect, it's one of the biggest things I impart in all my teaching, but you know, smooth, easy and fun from the start). Beautiful, informative, inspiring and encouraging, that's what I intend class to be. 

The students have been leaving the best introductions and after just being at the Creativebug Studios and seeing some of the student work from my class over there, I am even more excited to see the art that comes out of this class. Painting pretty petals is one of my favorite things to do, so happy to find so many of you feel the same, and I'm so happy to lead the Painting Petal brigade! The world can't have too many delightful florals. Speaking of which, the flowers above are giftwrap we'll be making in week 5 of class, one of the many projects.

We'll be covering floral inspirations, seeing more creatively and less realistically...

...drawing loosely with different tools, painting with acrylics...

...liquid watercolors and inks...

...talking colors and composition...

...imagination as inspiration...

...lettering and monochromatics, adding details...

...faux oil painting techniques and projects...

...practicing, and using and repurposing the practice...

...and so much more. I'm really proud of the class. I hope you'll join us...the first lessons are released tomorrow!!! 

For more information or to register, go here. 

(Sign ups will remain open for a bit and classroom stays open until February 1, 2017.)

I suppose my kitchen table won't look like this for too much longer...it's such pretty content I haven't minded. 

Greetings from San Francisco!

(A little hotel room fun.)

Well, hello!! How are things out there?!? 

I'm up in San Francisco filming another series for Creativebug (on doodling- how fun is that for a topic?!?) and thought I'd share a few shots from life on the road. 



If you follow me on Instagram (which, to be honest, has taken over my blogging for quite a while now, more likely you check in there vs. here these days), you may have seen me working on the set backdrop which is made of three 4'x8' panels. I shipped them off last week and yesterday, after I asked if they arrived at the studio as expected, I got off the airplane to see this Instagram. I laughed out loud. It's Courtney Cerruti and Liana Allday (both Creativebug geniuses), after hanging the banner in the studio for my shoot this week. 

The Creativebug studio is right in the middle of the city now, so tonight I was able to jump on the cable car and ride all the way up the hill until home. 


A room with a view. In such a great city.

I saw this sign as soon as I left the studio and stepped out into the street: 



LOVE it !!! And I couldn't agree more! 

And here's a shot from earlier today while filming:



We're so serious aren't we? About doodling, lol. Another great crew and three more days of filming to go. 

And then....

Then I return home, and soon after that... Painting Petals class starts!!!! I am so thankful to all of you that have signed up! I'm excited and nervous and impatient and inspired all at once. Some little Painting Petals type of fun had recently in the desert:





(It's really going to be good. And it's not too late to join us!)

Thinking of you, the blog readers, my oldest creative compatriots. I'm thankful you stop by, even though my blog has been more of a newsletter of late. I'm definitely grateful for you, the readers, the students, the artwork supporters. You motivate me to keep creating and sharing, whatever the platform. 

Hope your week is off to a good start! XoP

greetings from the desert

We are here, Mary Ann, Carol and I, on our yearly art retreat to Palm Springs. It's our 4th. Something to look forward to all year. Last night we went to dinner and toasted 2 out of 3 birthdays, another year of life's ups and downs, hard work done, a shared love of art making and so much more.

I just loved this visual, had to grab a shot. I wish I'd had it for the holidays. It's perfect winter photo fare to me.

Breakfast today. Another yearly tradition.

We don't always see snow on the mountain tops, even in winter. It was pretty breathtaking.

And then we ventured to the Sunnyland gardens. Amazing!

Two of the Moss sisters. Don't let their sweet smiles fool you, these two are up to trouble in a heartbeat if it's an option!

The Sunnyland garden is truly stunning. Highly recommend a visit.

Driving home to our rental. I will always love these windmills.

I'll share some art making next post.

(A friendly reminder: last day for the early bird discount price on my Painting Petals online class!!!)

Oh, and one more thing:

;) hahaha!

Ps from Pamela Garrison on Vimeo.

 

 

 

recent adventures

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How great is this card from my friend, artist Jennifer Mercede? Love it! She is the best at sending snail mail, I need to up my snail mail sending this year for sure. I'm not good at it at all.

So how's the new year treating you? It's been "so far, so good" over here. I've had a few recent adventures like going to Disneyland with Ali, Paolo, and their crew:

This is on splash mountain right before Paolo and I were drenched. Not overstating it at all, we were totally soaked. Fortunately, it was early in the day and we dried out before it got cold.

Ali with her friend and co-worker Katie. Love them.

I also love California Adventure, the other park at Disneyland. Foolishly, I rode California Screamin. Not sure what I was thinking there, but it lived up to it's name, I nearly lost my voice from screaming and had to lay down on a park bench after getting off because I felt motion sick. It's funny now, (even kind of funny then), but safe to say I will never ride that again! I should have saved my ride courage for Tower of Terror instead. 

Here's the whole gang, Ali, her boyfriend Aaron, me, Paolo, Katie's husband Peter, Katie and Graham the wonder baby- he's the sweetest and I was so happy to be able to get a little baby fix. Loved tagging along with them; they are all fun and interesting and smart and kind, and big Disney enthusiasts.

Even though I live in Southern California, I can't think of a time when I was at Disney with just adults (and a wee one). It was super fun. Especially the drinks and dancing over at The Mad Hatter Tea Party when it got late. Pretty sure my yelling (singing) to 80's songs took care of what voice I had left after that ride.

Ali and crew were in town for CHA (the Craft & Hobby Association trade show), and since I had a couple meetings there, I met up with them the next day too. Here they are joined by Kelly Purkey in the Studio Calico photo booth. I was happy to finally get to meet Kelly, she was very sweet.

While in the Ali Edwards section of the booth I got to look through some of Ali's real albums and they are even more amazing in person. She's a super talented storyteller, documenter, scrapbooker, whatever-you-want-to-call-it, and I'm very happy she's got even more exciting things in the works for the future.

My meetings went well and I might just have some exciting things in the works myself, fingers crossed! ;)

But for now, I'm still super excited about my Painting Petals class! The early bird price is good for only 2 more days. A great group has formed, and if you want to join us, today or tomorrow will be the best savings on the class. I'm still creating content, I can't seem to stop! (You can find out all about it and register here.) I hope you'll join us!

I hope your year is off to a good start. Had any fun adventures? Being a homebody, I forget that new adventures can be really good and just plain fun. January has been has been just that.
2016 is looking pretty promising so far, cheers to the New Year! Xo