endings and beginnings

It's been a long time since my last post!  But it has certainly been a season of endings and new beginnings. 

 

To conclude 2010, Erik and I were able to spend time with family and friends in Indiana.  A highlight: collaborative cooking with one of my besties, Kathryn.  I can't think of a better way to end the year than to spend time with dear friends and take in the beauty and tastes of a creative meal.  I'm pretty sure that in my next life I will be a chef and go to culinary school - I find it so refreshing to be in the kitchen, spending loads of time cutting, squeezing, spicing and dicing around so many colors and textures!

 

 

 

 

And to begin the new year, I am engaging in one of my other loves: teaching art!  This week I will be teaching 7 students all about encaustic painting.  I fully expect to have 7 new wax-converts by the end of the week.  :)  It seems like the perfect way to begin 2011: covering tables with fresh brown craft paper,

 

 

mixing up new batches of encaustic medium,

 

 

setting out art supplies,

 

 

preparing teaching charts

 

 

colored photograph examples, and even hanging strings with clothes-pins at each table - in hopes that each student will make the space their own.  

 

The studio has been prepared,

 

 

the teaching outlines are in order, and the students are set to begin arriving in the next few hours.  The perfect white snow outside reminds me that even nature likes new beginnings and clean slates.  

 

2011, I hope you are a year full of new beginnings, creative entrepreneurship, big dreams, and lots of augenschmaus!