Sandy Scales 2 Day Seminar - Unpublished Maureen McNaughton Pattern

GET READY FOR 2011

Do you want to be "PAMPERED" at your next seminar?
Then come to a seminar at Pampered Palette!  The Premiere Studio for the Decorative Artist.

Sandy Scales Seminar

SPRING TAPESTRY INSPIRATION - Pattern #801

(Maureen McNaughton Pattern - (c) 2010)

April 16, 17, 2011

(BRAND NEW Maureen McNaughton Pattern, Never Published and Never taught in the Washington DC area.)

Seminar cost $120.00 for both days.

$60.00 Deposit required to reserve a seat.

Seminar includes complete pattern packet with pictures, paints, snacks and lunch - all provided by Pampered Palette. (Surface is an additional purchase, not included in seminar costs and available at Pampered Palette.)

Sign up today - limited seats available.

NOTE: MUST SIGN UP FOR BOTH DAYS. THIS PROJECT WILL TAKE TWO DAYS TO COMPLETE)

DECORATIVE PAINTING SEMINAR FEATURING SANDY SCALES

SEMINAR SPONSORED BY PAMPERED PALETTE

SEMINAR WILL BE HELD AT:

PAMPERED PALETTE

GAINESVILLE, VIRGINIA

For information or to reserve your seat, visit http://www.pamperedpalette.com/ or call David at (703) 754-8141

RESERVE EARLY AS SEATS ARE LIMITED.

Washington DC Area Exposition and Exhibit - November 20 & 21, 2010

We are just over a month away from our November Washington DC Area Expo/Exhibit. The dates are November 20 & 21, 2010 at the Westin Tysons Corner. The above flyer, which was created by David Jansen for the event, gives all the information needed for the FREE event. Any one needing any additional information or if you have questions, shoot an email to david@pamperedpalette.com. We hope to see everyone there. What a great time to watch David Jansen paint an Armoire. Bring you cameras, tape recorders, camcorders and lots of questions.

Tatiana Sholokhova Zhostovo Style 3 Day Seminar

COMING TO PAMPERED PALETTE - JULY 2011

TATIANA SHOLOKHOVA ZHOSTOVO STYLE 3 DAY SEMINAR

JULY 29, 30, 31, 2011

SEMINAR COST $300.00 FOR THE THREE DAYS AND INCLUDES ALL PAINTS, MEDIUMS, AND PHOTOGRAPHS.

$100.00 DEPOSIT IS REQUIRED TO RESERVE YOUR SEMINAR SEAT

SEMINAR WILL BE HELD AT PAMPERED PALETTE
GAINESVILLE, VIRGINIA 20155
(703) 754-8141

TATIANA WILL BE DESIGNING A NEW TULIP PATTERN THAT WILL BE PAINTED DURING THIS SEMINAR ON AN APPROXIMATELY 8" X 7" METAL TRAY. THE ROOSTER PIECE PICTURED ABOVE WILL BE PAINTED ON AN OVAL WOODEN BOX.

VISIT http://store.pamperedpalette.com/ TO RESERVE YOUR SEAT TODAY. ANY QUESTIONS CONCERNING THE SEMINAR SHOULD BE DIRECTED TO ME - david@pamperedpalette.com

BOOK NOW AS WE HAVE ALREADY STARTED RECEIVING RESERVATIONS. YOU DO NOT WANT TO MISS THIS SEMINAR. THIS WILL BE TATIANA'S ONLY VISIT NEXT YEAR TO THE WASHINGTON DC AREA. BOOK NOW.

Another Weekend Seminar

This past weekend we (Pampered Palette) along with Bev's Ceramics sponsored a Sandy Scales seminar at Bev's studio. We spent the weekend painting several of Maureen McNaughton's patterns pictured above (excuse the flash). Some of the individuals attending the seminar painted on ceramic bisque surfaces while others painted on wood surfaces. We even had some attendees that had never attempted stroke work previously. In all it was a good two days of painting. We are planning the next Sandy Scales seminar for December 4 & 5, 2010. For that seminar we will be painting two pieces, a Cabbage Rose & Holly pattern and a Summer Sweet Pea pattern. We are looking forward to that seminar.

Now next on our list of seminars is a weekend with David Jansen where we will be learning Rosemaling. That should be interesting and hopefully we will be able get through the pieces with our usual excitement and of course patience. We will see. Have to run out. Just wanted to share the pieces we completed this past weekend with everyone. Until next time, Happy Painting.

New Website and Online Store Coming Soon!

We are really busy trying to get our new website and online store constructed and rolled out. We do not know how long this will take but are hoping to get everything done this month. We are combining a lot of our websites into one very user friendly site. The new site will have a newsletter, a forum, the Pampered Palette website, the Pampered Palette Educational Network and our online store all in one place. Now how cool is that? Now some may ask why we are redoing our website/store? Well, we are trying to bring up a site that is a lot more flexible for us, more user friendly for end user, and more visually pleasing to the customer. We have been busy configuring and pulling data into the new system. Currently, all the products and prices have been included in the system. We now are trying to bring up the website information, forum and newsletter along with TESTING, TESTING, and more TESTING. It seems like we do not have enough hands to get everything done and find the time to paint as well. We expect that once the site is launched then everything will calm down a bit (we hope).

We are rolling out several seminars using one of our local ceramic studios space for the classes. Soon we will have our own class area completed. We have the room almost finished, painted and the flat screens mounted. We are currently waiting for some gadgets we need to pull everything together so that we can display different pictures on the three different screens or all the same picture. We have added a brand new camcorder where we can zoom into to see a flea on a fly's butt..........lol. We are really excited about the classes and the new space.

Do not forget about HOOT. We will be there with two booth spaces, 413-415, so if you are planning a trip to Ohio to attend HOOT, be sure and stop by our booths and say hello. We also would like to remind everyone about the Washington DC area Mini-Conference/Exposition scheduled for November 20/21 with our Special Guest, David Jansen painting an Armoire. What an exciting year we have planned. So, stay tuned for more news. Until next time, HAPPY PAINTING!

Well the SDP conference is over for this year. I think it was a lot of hard work for our tiny little booth but we had a great time. We met a lot of our friends from England, Canada, Australia, Turkey, Bolivia and the US that all stopped by to browse because they know us from Facebook. I thought that was really great. We sold all of the Heritage colorsets that we had stocked to sell and some of the new 19 colorsets. The Garden Parula DVD and Pattern Packet was a big hit as well with over 20 of those items sold............We also moved a lot of other DVDs, lots of mediums (sold out of some of them) and other goodies that we had. Now the show itself was a little small attendance wise but we still were very pleased with the overall results. We made a lot of new friends and hopefully now have a lot of new customers.......yeah!!!!!!

So, now we are home, what do we do next? Well we will be getting ready for HOOT. We have two booths at HOOT (will have two booths at SDP next year as well) so I need to get busy deciding what the booth will look like, what products will be in the booth, and the most important, what we will wear (I have an idea).

I have included some pictures of the event (our booth) above so that you can take a look. All went well. Until the next post, Happy Painting.

New Booth Backdrop For the SDP Conference

As always, times have been a little rough around here lately. We are getting ready for the SDP and HOOT Conferences so that means we need to determine what we are taking to the show. We have a booth at both shows so I decided last week that I would have a professional backdrop made for the booth. Above is a picture of the backdrop which we received yesterday via FEDEX. So it looks like we will be using the booth backdrop at the SDP show. YAHOOOOOO!!!! The backdrop is actually 8 feet by 8 feet so it should fill the booth very well. Now all we have to do is get ourselves and everything else to Wichita.

I am trying to get some painting done however with everything going on right now, it has been a little difficult to get into my painting area. We are having the classroom constructed which is taking a little longer than I expected. Well we now have walls and they are painted........now that is a start. This past weekend we had 18 cans (lights) installed in the ceiling for lighting and two 42" flat screen TVs. The TVs will assist the student during class to see brushstrokes, blending, or whatever as they are hooked to the camcorder. We are getting there.

For those that do not know, we two seminars scheduled already for June. I will be the instructor for the Fusion Blending seminar and we are bringing Sandy Scales for a two day seminar. Sandy will be providing instruction for two of Maureen McNaughton's patterns. So as you can see, we are a little busy and excited at the same time.

Along with all this excitement, we had our first decorative painted piece on ceramic bisque published in the Ceramic Artist Guild's e-magazine (Cerakanvas) which is read by over 66,000 individuals worldwide. The magazine is very professional and is packed full of fun ideas and projects. Check it out at www.ceramicartistguild.com . About a month ago, I was made the Ceramic Artist Guild's Special Ambassador for Decorative Painting. Well this month, I became a SDP Ambassador as well so now I promote both decorative painting and ceramics to both organizations. What an exciting time but very busy. Which reminds me. I have got to run so I can get some things completed. Who knows, maybe I will be able to paint some today......one can only hope. Until the next post, Happy Painting!

November Event Plans Moving Right Along - Everyone is Invited

We are planning a great event this November with Special Guest David Jansen. Above is our current advertisement with all the information. Individuals can also check out our website for new information. Go to http://www.pamperedpalette.com and look under the Tab "Washington Mini-Convention. We hope to see everyone there. Do not miss this event. When is the last time David Jansen visited the Washington DC area not to mention we have very talented artists like Georgia Dawbon, Arlene Newman, Bev Scarborough that you do not want to miss. See you there!

SDP Wichita Conference - May 2010

This will be just a short post to invite everyone to stop by our booth (317) at the SDP Conference, in Wichita this May. Above is a picture of our advertisement that will run in the SDP Conference Program. Only one month to go!!!!!!! See ya there.

Until the next post, Happy Painting.

Washington DC Mini-Convention - A World of Color

I just wanted to let everyone know about the event that we are planning. Details are not totally finalized but this is what I have confirmed thus far. Now put this on your calendars............

Washington DC Mini-Convention - "A World Of Color"
Westin Tysons Corner (Rt 495 & Rt 7)
November 20 & 21, 2010 (10 am to 5 pm, both days)
Open to the Public, Admission is FREE

With Special Guest David Jansen

There will be make it and take its, demonstrations, new products, a decorative art gallery, wood and more.

Studio that I can announce right now that will be there are:

Jansen Art Studio
Pampered Palette
Dawbon Art Studio
Arlene Newman Designs
Dave's Cuts
Bev's Ceramics

Other studios and guest will be announced soon.

This is a Pampered Palette Sponsored Event - "Bringing Decorative Arts and Ceramics Back to the Mainstream"

Visit http://dacartists.ning.com/ for the latest information.

Launching of a New Social Network

I just seem to be constantly trying new things. Everyone, by now, knows of my little run in with FaceBook as they apparently have a problem with the speed that you grow your friends list. Well, this week I also realized that on FaceBook all you have to do is have some of your competitors complain against you and guess what? You are booted off their site losing all of your friends and fans. So I have decided to keep a very small presence on FaceBook which I have done by establishing a new page. However, that is not where I will place all my eggs as I have learned you cannot control or trust people (competitors) on FaceBook.

Well, after a day of thinking that I had been defeated in my attempts to grow our decorative painting and ceramics industries and trying to figure out my next steps, I had a realization. Yep, I am not going to let FaceBook get me down, not one bit. I started to search the internet on social networks and networking ideas. I thought there had to be another FaceBook type application out there on the internet world. Well I found a few like MySpace, which I still have not figured that one out. The problem I had was that the other sites did not offer me the flexibility or functionality that I wanted. Which brought me to another realization of idea. I will build my own social network. A site that is open to all artists no matter what art or craft industry they participate or what paint they use. All artists are welcome (see my reasoning here?) as you may have a person join the site that is in to scrapbooking that may decide to try painting or a person that is using a different paint line that may try Heritage. The site has to serve the communities to educate, encourage, and promote decorative painting and ceramics. So, after kicking this around a little we launched the Decorative Arts and Ceramics soical network. So far we have over 175 members located in the US, Canada, UK, Taiwan, Argentina and Australia. We have a varied membership of ceramcists, decorative artists and even members that paint on gourds and eggs. We are getting great response and lots of participation. So far our members have posted over 115 pictures of their finished pieces and 5 how to videos. For only being up for a couple of days that is great participation. The best part about this is that it is all FREE to all members and groups. Now just watch us grow.

The site is specifically for decorativing painting and ceramics. So it is those individuals that work, teach, paint, create, design or are just interested in the arts. We can even set up groups areas for SDP chapters so they can post the information, pictures, events, videos or whatever specific their organizations. I am pleased as punch at the progress we have made this week. So please that we will have a computer set up at the SDP Conference where attendees will be able to navigate the site and actually become a member right there - LIVE. The picture posted above will be a postcard that we will be handing out at the conference. We have even expanded our tables for the booth. One table will have a table throw that say "Pampered Palette" and the other will say "Decorative Arts and Ceramics". Just never a dull moment in at Pampered Palette.

Well that is the news this week. Until next time..........HAPPY PAINTING!

A Really Strange Week Indeed

Have you ever wondered why some people find it necessary to be nasty, intrusive, or just plain backstabbing? They seem to feel justified in getting into your business. It is like they are afraid of fair competition or something. Well, that is just what happened to me this week. We had grown our FaceBook friends to over 2450 people and had over 1450 people following Pampered Palette page. Out of the blue last Monday, FaceBook turned off my account (disabled it with no reason given). I know some people would not tell that little tidbit but I really do not care nor do I have anything to hide so I will publicly discuss it. I had no idea why they account was disabled when I received their email so I shot an email to the powers to be at FaceBook. You know, it took FaceBook over a week to respond to my message and their response kind of surprised me. As a person and a businessman, I always operate in everything that I do with respect to all individuals. I am not harsh with people (however, do not get on my bad side....lol.), I do not slam people, point fingers or call names. I just try to be rah rah, uplifting, and responsive to encourage existing painters and painters that would like to try painting for the first time to pick up a brush and just paint something. I do not care what they paint, just paint something. So what happened?

Well, FaceBook finally responded yesterday to tell me that they had received a complaint about me concerning what they called harassing behavior (translated, I requested friends too fast or something). So the complaint centered around me requesting people to be friends or fans too fast. Well isn't that a crock? I thought that was the whole purpose of FaceBook to find friends to build your social network. I evidently became too RAH RAH, grew too fast, and my take on the whole subject is that it appears I have ruffled the feathers of some of our competition. I now know that competitors can lodge a complaint, get your account disabled and their is absolutely nothing you can do about it. In fact, FaceBook will not even tell you who complained, what the complaints was or any other information besides a general "your account has been disabled". Oh, they do tell you their decision is FINAL!

So in response to the whole situation, this week we launched the Decorative Arts and Ceramics social network which actually provides us more functionality than FaceBook. In a matter of days we have grown the site to about 135 people with more people joining everyday. So we are on our way to BIG things. The good part about the DAC Artists network is that it is FREE to all artists. I do not care what you paint or what field you are in, all artists are welcome. We can even set up groups for local decorative painting associations so they can post their own information, events, news, etc. Also, each individual that joins can establish their own page to promote their business, post pictures, provide news, or whatever. It is very flexible. And the good part? FaceBook cannot shut it down. As the site grows, I can expand the storage capacity and increase our bandwidth (that part will cost some money but not a lot, which I fund). So I am very pleased with the progress thus far.

As of this morning, we have members in Canada, US, Taiwan, Australia, Argentina, and a few others that are posting their own pictures on their personal/business pages. The system picks up those pictures and runs a slide show on the main DAC page. We have some great art pictures running through the slide show with about 95 pictures randomly being displayed. Now we are working on providing content so that the site becomes, not only informative but educational. In fact, Georgia Dawbon has already posted 3 videos. Way to go Georgia.

Finally, I would like to thank our very supportive friends at CAG (Ceramic Artist Guild) who have supported me as their Ambassador to Decorative Painting/SDP as well as the establishment of the new DAC Artist site 200%. What a great group of people. If you have not visited their website, go over to http://www.ceramicartistguild.com/ and take a look.

As you can see there is never a dull moment in the lives of Pampered Palette or myself. So until the next post, HAPPY PAINTING!!!!!!! And do not get too many friends as the unsocial network FACEBOOK will not like that.......................hmmmmmmmmmmmm.

SDP Wichita Seminar

The other weekend (February 26, 27, & 28), Mark and I hopped on a plane flying to Wichita Kansas to attend the SDP Maureen McNaughton seminar. We painted three different Maureen McNaughton patterns over the three day period. We did not get them completely finished but we gave it our best shot. I think this time the hardest part of the seminar for most of us was sitting in the same chair for three solid days. By the time the seminar was over, there was not one part of my body that did not hurt (from the chairs) While there we met a lot very nice people, exchange ideas, tips, jokes, laughter, etc. and of course I did some shameless marketing. I handed out business cards and Pampered Palette ink pens. Well, we made til the end of the seminar and was very pleased with our projects. The pictures above are from the seminar and of course one of the pictures is my completed piece. The other two pieces I have not completed yet............mainly because since the seminar, I have been on travel to Germany and Santa Fe. Seems a little hectic at the moment.

Now let's talk about Germany a little. We woke up Saturday morning (in Germany) to SNOW. I just about dropped my teeth as the weather was not calling for any snow. Evidently, it was an unexpected snowfall that caused many accidents throughout the area. After having over 42 inches of snow this year in DC, snow was not something that I wanted to see. Once we got over the shock of snow falling, we spent the day walking around Frankfurt, shopping, and of course eating. We returned just in time for me to hop my next flight (for work) to Santa Fe. What a busy few weeks.........to much travel for me as I am feeling a little exhausted not knowing what time zone I am in..................................

Well, now I am home and my plans are to paint one of Maureen's patterns on a ceramic bisque (a plate). I think this will really look quite nice on the plate......hopefully I can stay off of planes long enough to paint.........lol.

Looking for information on decorative painting or ceramics? Need to apply for membership? Need to renew your membership? You can join either organization today!!!!!! Visit http://www.ceramicartistguild.com/ for ceramics and http://www.decorativepainters.org/ for decorative painting. JOIN TODAY!!!!!!

See us at the Wichita SDP Conference in May 2010 at booth #317..........See ya there. Until Next Time, Happy Painting.

Reaching Out To Others

This week, after David J. announced the pending release of the new DVD 6002, I was sitting thinking of ways to market decorative painting. I remembered when I use to do ceramics many years ago that the ceramic industry was kind of divided up into groups. One group did stoneware, one did porcelain, one did slip poured ceramics, others did hand thrown works, and so on. It is kind of like decorative painting where some use wood, some use tin/metal, others canvas, glass or some other surface. Well, I got to thinking, and I do know that is rare. What if we try to combine some parts of the two industries in an attempt to reach out to other artists. So, I grabbed my keys and off to the local ceramics shop I drove. The owner and I had a brief discussion about our industry, about teaching some decorative painting classes at her shop and about using ceramic bisque pieces as a decorative painting surface. What was next? Well I purchased 4 pieces of ceramic bisque from the shop owner. What plan did I have? I had decided that I would take a few of the Heritage lessons from the manual and paint those lessons on the ceramic bisque.

And that is just what I started to do. The next step was how to I reach other artists? I decided to use FaceBook. I currently have 1830 people following me on FaceBook (David Vernon page) and 1086 following Pampered Palette. That would be a perfect place to throw out my idea, reaching lots of people and getting their response. So, I posted what I was doing on both the Pampered Palette page and David Vernon page, how we, as artists, could use different surfaces paint crossing over boundaries/industries to learn new things. So, ceramists could learn some decorative painting techniques painting them on ceramic bisque, wood or other surfaces. I even posted a picture. Next, as a member of the Ceramic Artist Guild, I posted the same information and another picture. I have been absolutely blown away with the responses. Many people thought it was a great idea to cross industries and expand the boundaries of both industries. Let's share our art........................I was even asked if I would consider submitting my finished piece for inclusion in their CAG magazine.

So, I am working on a deal to teach decorative painting at the local ceramic studio, will include ceramic bisque as a surface in my studio lessons, and possibly add ceramic bisque to my online store (the bisque will be purchased from the local studio, I am not cleaning and firing greenware). So a little idea that was circulating in my head (lots of room for that) on reaching out to fellow artists no matter what industry has created an opportunity for me to expand my involvement in decorative painting and hopefully bring new people to the Heritage family. A good week if I must say so myself............lol.

Well that is it from Pampered Palette for right now. Until the next post, Happy Painting.

Snow, Snow, and more Snow!!!!!!!

I am sorry but this is just a little too much snow for me. We ended up with 32 inches of the white stuff (other areas got as much as 40 inches). I am really not a Snow Bunny so all this snow is just an annoyance for me. Normally, I tend to spend my time traveling or just running to a store if I need something. Well with all this snow, we could go no where. We were stuck in the house. This morning things are a little better as the snow plow finally came down our street but from reports on the TV, it does not appear that it is that safe to venture out today. We will see how things go. Actually, the TV weather forecast for this coming Tuesday is for another 6+ inches of snow. Come on SPRING!

What else has happened this week? Thanks for asking. I released my very first pattern packet titled "Strawberry and Daisy Fusion" and now am working on my second one. Putting together the design, selecting the colors and finally putting the total pattern packet together was really kind of fun. I learned a lot. I would really like to thank Georgia Dawbon and David Jansen for the use of their eyes to review the materials, their suggestions, assistance, and overall help with this project. Their help is soooooooo appreciated.

Since it snowed all day Friday and yesterday, I painted a little on my next pattern piece. I wanted to work on my DVD pieces (that I have started) but the power kept flickering off and on. Then there were times it went out totally so TVs, DVDs, and computers do not work well without electricity. Go figure. It is funny because that is one thing I never really thought about. When we heard that we had the potential of getting hammered with snow, we went out to the grocery store to buy what we thought we needed (CAKE). Well, we absolutely did not think of things that we may have really needed. I never realized how dependent we are on electricity. We woke up yesterday morning around 4:30 am (as usual) with no power. Well that meant no heat (we have two electrical units and one gas unit) we could not could use the stove or oven as both happen to be electric, no lights, no telephone (we at least had cellphone for backup), no TV, no Radio, no computer, etc. The gas heating unit is the main unit for the lower portion house but does not work without electricity (hmmmmmmmmmmm). The two electrical units heat the rest of house (of they did not work). We do have a gas fireplace which, I was surprised, actually works without power. We figured we could huddle around that if the power stayed out for an extending time and we needed some sort of heat. Well, we were very lucky as the power came back on after only being out for about 2 hours. However, there are people in our area that have been without electricity since Friday night. I can feel for them. Ours stayed on most of the day just flickered off and on throughout the day.

What did this teach us? That we are not prepared for an emergency. All the food we had basically required a stove and ours was electric. We did at least have candles and flashlights but nothing to cook on or even a battery powered radio. Everything is electric. So I now have a new goal. Buy items for the house that will assist us in the future in the event of some sort of emergency. It is really funny because you would think that we could have just gone to a hotel if necessary but in this case we could dig out the driveway with no problems but we could not go anywhere from the driveway. The streets were and are just impassable. We seemed to be stuck...........so now we will be prepared for future snow, rain storms or other emergencies. We learned a valuable lesson.

We do hope that all our friends are fine and please stay warm and safe. Happy Painting!

Another Hectic Week - New Computer/New System/New Shelves

Well this has been another very hectic week as I, for some odd reason, decided to purchase a new point of sale software solution for Pampered Palette. Well, that was a little bigger item to carry off than I was expecting. Just the whole integration with our financial system was enough to send me straight for therapy. Now that we have everything installed, the system provides a lot of interesting features including barcoding and scanning, cash drawer, receipt printing, credit card processing and much much more. If a new point of sale system was not enough, I decided to purchase and install a new computer with 1 TB hard drive and 8 gigs of memory running the new Microsoft Windows 7 operating system. That required the moving of all my files and software off of the old machine and onto the new machine. Another big headache as nothing seems to be as easy as everyone says it should be. It is a good thing that I have my own personal computer genius (Mark) who handles all my computer problems. With his help everything is up and running.

The pictures above are of my supply room that I am putting together. We have been busy putting together shelves, stocking the shelves and running an inventory for the new POS system. As you can see, I try to utilize every inch of space so that I can pack as many items on my shelves as possible. I still need to add some additional shelves especially where I stock plates giving me more room to stock more items without having to install a complete new set of shelves. I just add a shelf where needed. So far, so good.

Well working on all the computer stuff and shelving has left very little time for painting. However, I did get a few things started like my new pattern packet (number 2) that I a painting before scripting. I paint, take pictures, paint, take pictures and then finally I will script out the instructions. I really do not have enough hands to get everything completed. There are times that I feel overwhelmed. Well actually I think that is most of the time recently.

This week I fly to Los Angeles for the weekend and then back to Santa Fe on Monday. Well that cuts the time I would have to paint this weekend. I am home for a weekend (February 6) and then the following weekend we are off to Delaware for another painting seminar. Actually, during February we have two seminars. The second one is the weekend of February 26th with Maureen McNaughton in Wichita (SDP Headquarter). Oh well, maybe next month.

I really have tons to do so I will get off my box temporarily. Until the next post, HAPPY PAINTING!

New Sandy Scales Seminar Pieces

After a week of business travel where I returned from Santa Fe late Friday afternoon, Mark and I got out of bed Saturday morning at 4:30 am to drive to Delaware. We were attending another Sandy Scales seminar at Painter's Paradise and need to arrive no later than 8:30 am. Well, we did great on the road as the traffic was pretty light which helped us arrive at Starbucks by 8:00 am. Wow, we had time to spare. After picking up our drinks and drinks for Sandy, we headed to Painter's Paradise arriving with plenty of time to set everything up. The first piece we painted was the green plaque picture above. For that piece we did a lot of shaded, floated some color, highlighted some flowers with a little extender and a mop brush and marbleized the outer edge. In all the Saturday class went very well and even though I consider myself a slow painter, I was able to keep up with everybody.

On Sunday we worked on the plate pictured above. I just love fan strokes which the piece has a lot of those strokes. I find them fun and easy to do. I think I have that technique down pat. When I returned home, I still needed to finish the plate's outer edges. So, I took two of the colors from the palette, made a purple mix, and then antiqued the piece with a gray wash. I am pleased with the results. The next Sandy Scales seminar is scheduled for February 13 & 14 at Painter's Paradise. Again, Mark and I have booked our places for that seminar then then end of the month we will be attending Maureen's Seminar in Wichita. We have so many classes scheduled that I am having a little hard time keeping track of them. I know I have two classes scheduled with David Jansen as well later this year. Boy, I should hire an assistant.

Still lots going on at Pampered Palette as we have received lots of new wood, metal and canvas painting surfaces along with many new supplies. Rapidly our shelves are becoming completely stock, which is good. But it has definitely kept me busy along with all the seminar painting and the Heritage lesson pieces I am painting. Maybe I can clone myself so I can have another set of hands..........lol. Anyway, there is never a dull moment. This is about it for the news right now. Until the next post, Happy Painting.