A night to Remember....making McB proud

Last night was the reception for the Senior Show for Baltimore County Schools. This is the big show where all the high schools get to put their best work from their seniors and juniors into this show. It's at Goucher college's Rosenberg Gallery. Its a really BIG DEAL for us art teachers and art students. Awards are awarded...accolades are exclaimed and it really does a great job of patting us art people in the back and say"you've done a good job...because look how amazing your students have grown. WE, at Parkville High, RULED last night. I mean RULED! Everybody showed up...that includes my awesome staff of art teachers and ALL of the students showed up. And boy did they look GREAT! I will Absolutely miss these kids..except for Justin C...he has another year with my insane-ness to put up with. Here they are by their works with the awards they received. I am so proud!

Simone Norman…Best Sculpture in Show

Justin Terry Best Photograph in Show, Honorable Mention and Selection from Azarael Gann & Franz, Attorney at Law

Justin Caruso , People’s Choice Award, Selection into Azarael Gann & Franz, Attorney at Law Art Show.

Isaac Aladeseyi, Honorable Mention from Crayola Award

Nina Koduah...looking so pretty

Pile of Craft

Charm City Craft Mafia is pleased to present the SECOND annual Pile of Craft held on Saturday, June 21st, 2008. The event, featuring 40+ crafty vendors, will be held indoors at St. John’s Church located at 2640 St. Paul St, Baltimore, MD 21218, from 10:00 AM until 5:00 PM.
check for vendors here

Mr. Peacock in Blue

Decided to expand my canvas color options...here is mr. peacock in navy blue. look for other canvas color options in the future.

cool placemats

in the place mat department most of us have our stand-by fabric decors for everyday or formal use. but how about these pop-up references to home and entertainment! the designs remind me of elegant cartoon land...i guest it s the tweedy bird bird cage and Victorian chair motif. these were created by Publique Living at the national stationary show in new york that was graciously reviewed by design*sponge.

i'm being featured

check out CustomCreations BySydnei
today.. Sydnei has been gracious enough to include many pics of my jennyjen productsa s well as posting an interview and a give away for people who look and comment on my shop! What a great idea! Thanks So much Sydnei!

Elegy for Robert Rauschenberg

A great lost we had in the art world, not too long ago. This video by Susan Sollins-Brown, Executive Director of Art21 was emailed to me today. This week i have been thinking so much about painting...thinking about dekooning, been reading Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees: A Life of Contemporary Artist Robert Irwin...showed Pollack to my Ap kids, been thinking so much about paint. I love Rauschecberg's work since the first time i saw his work in the BMA. I've loved his work ever since i started to paint...i mean truly understand paint.

quickie vote

my favorite peoples at let's share, are having a vote for berkley illustration 's new animal for their June line. Its real quick , like tomorrow is the last day...sorry I just caught it. i added their link to the jennyjen links to continue checking them out. i love their animals in suit prints...i'm hoping you noticed them in prime areas in my living room. i'm thinking that a porcupine would look real good in that suit!

sneak peaks

i love sneak peaks on design*sponge so much that i decided to start the same sort of thing for the baltimoreetsy blog...and to be fair I had to go clean up and straighten up and take quick pics (before Patrick took the camera for his big race this weekend) of my favorite peaks around my house. I truly believe that artists have to have their hand in just about everything that deals with aesthetics and what we see and live with. I thought I would begin with studio spaces first, so you can see that this Saturday of my sweat shop on the baltimoreetsy site.So I thought I would post some of my other favorite parts of our house here....today the living room. yes the walls are tea green..when you first paint it it looks like tenis ball green..the light here was just before dusk, so it looks a bit more orange. Paintings are mine...prints are from berkley illustrations and jason Kachadourian and Charley Harper

look what we made today!

Patrick is a downhill bicyclist...meaning he rides down what people ski down in the winter time...except more in the woods...over rocks and roots....not straight down the mountain....at least they try not to go straight down. anyway, this weekend is the US open in Vernon New Jersey...yes they have something like a mountain in New Jersey. if you haven't strayed onto the traction mag link from my site...check it out today...in fact do it now and you will see what i'm talking about. he and his buddy Dave have lined up some great photo shoots as well as Red bull having a photo contest during the event, and they wanted some way to capture the view from a biker's chest...you know right behind the handle bars... so we partnered up...Patrick and I and made our own version of a camera harness. i always wanted to be part of a think tank...how great to have your own think tank happening in your own home! check it out. i really need to expand my totes into more variations of bags...need to check out strap options.

my favorite interiors

design*sponge posted more from surtex 2008 and featured some great photo's from one of my favorite fabric designers joel dewberry. i have been obssesed lately and have included a lot of his fabrics. Nice to find out he is as wonderful as his designs are. i find his color and pattern choices to be perfect for my peacock and owl totes.

first the slide projector....then the polaroid

i have so many fond memories of the various stages of Polaroid cameras my grandfather went through in my childhood. i loved the accordion fold out...and the excitement of pealing back the paper after waiting , what felt like forever to see the image. I took a workshop once so that i could get a free Polaroid camera in the beginning of my teaching career with this great plan of converting empty casings of film into more Polaroid cameras...not realizing how much 20 rolls of Polaroid film costs in my early days of $18,000 a year salary. i played around with scratching into the surface and writing into the film as the picture developed. i loved being able to watch it develop.
to capture the love of Polaroid go check out isofoto photography & illustration on etsy.

Polaroid photographs that were shot using their now sadly extinct polaroid sx-70 film, coupled with the polaroid sx-70 folding camera."

going vinyl

i really love this new trend in wall decals...blows wallpaper away! i have painted painstaking on walls...projector in hand, brushes of all sizes, don't hit me or i'll kill you, wall paintings. our loft used to have many a decor. we've been contemplating various items and pics to paint on our walls but haven't found the time to get all of my painting tools and materials out and do any of them. search wall decor on etsy and you get 72 pages full of great designs! here are some of my favorites from the first quarter of the selection..we have the scuba diver on our john! one of my stocking stuffer i got from santa!

tank diver, vinyl toilet graphic by vital

Wind Blown Dandelion Vinyl Sticker by Sweetnothing

Sophia- birds on branch decal by Elephannie

Opulent wall Graphic by oneupdesigns

Walk this Way by ellynelly

Squiggle Bird Family large wall decal by lewasdesigns

friday finds

here are two groups of favorites from my favorites..all on etsy ... of course!
happy pay day! happy shopping!

myimaginaryboyfriend'shop's screen printed wool log pillow
John w golden's shop, from the critter series: the Artful Raccoon

anatomy of a skirt 's Woodgrain Peggy Sue Purse with Racooon

craftpudding's shop's Sock Monkey Hand Carved Rubber Stamp
Alice Rose's Bike T Shirt
john w golden's shop 's Lunastrella's Camera
michelemaule's i heart bianchi...original print
yaelfran's the best news

yee haw industries

i love it when i go onto a site, see something that draws my eye, that leads to another site and another, and so on and so on. today's find is yee haw industries and Bjorn rune Lie.
keep going through the links on Bjorn's site till you find Gumbo Illustrations. I love the idea of Artist's can labels. Pat and I made can labels our first project in our graphic design class with the middle schoolers...quite fun! anyway, go surfing through the sites. I love the Margaret Kilgallen style of his work.

drawing in circles

i've seen this post on a number of my favorite blogs and decided to pass on the word..i really love this way of creating a repetitive pattern...looks like a new unit for my design unit ...thanks design*sponge for having julia rothman as your guest blogger this week. you can check out the entire tutorial here.