Time Flies

I have been so busy lately. I have been planning the Spring Fest for the North Port Art Center!

I have a total of 40 vendors and about five or six food vendors. There's going to be arts, crafts, photography, pottery, jewelry, and informational booths. There's even going to be pony and horse rides! A fun time for all.

But it all takes a lot of planning and time and hard work. The organization skills I acquired from my Mother have come in handy. She never overlooked a detail and wow, am I ever glad I took after her for that!

Soon I have some foot surgery coming up, so I know I won't be blogging as much. I go in for the surgery the day after the festival! I may have more time to do artwork though so that's good! I try to look for the silver lining in everything.

Not enough time for art?

Sometimes, there just isn't enough time for creating artwork. Life gets in the way. However, I have found if you take a class, even if you have your own creative studio, when you take a class, it serves as a discipline to set aside three hours of time dedicated to creating. When you're at home in your studio, somehow when the phone rings, it's got to be answered, laundry keeps calling me, so does dusting, and oh, then there's food!

When I take a class, I'm away from all that and I am allowed to be creative. I give myself permmission to escape from household chores, friends calling and anything else that might be disturbing MY time to paint. I'm allowed to focus and use the right side of my brain.

So, carve a time away from it all, you're worth it!

Photography Club

I belong to a photography club called "Photo Adventures Camera club". Their website is http://www.pacameraclub.com/ On that website are galleries of photography work of many of the members. Some of the members are retired photographers, some have had their work published in magazines, many have won multiple awards, and then there's a few that are definite newbies, just making the cross over from film to digital photography and want to learn. The club membership is only $10 per year and that is such a bargain. We have two meetings a month. The second Thursday of the month we have a roundtable discussion meeting, of which there are more and more round tables at the meetings because the club is growing by leaps and bounds! We discuss anything new in photography, new in photoshop programs, decide where to do a photoshoot, talk about any awards someone may have received, and then there's times they talk about upcoming events we've been asked to enter work into. When we're done with "business", we take out our cameras and learn something new.

When I joined the club a few years ago, I only had a point and shoot camera, but at least it was digital. My purpose of joining the club was my dog had delivered five beautiful puppies and I wanted some good photos of them to post online and I thought perhaps I could find someone who would take some photos for us. Well, I was so fortunate because when I mentioned they were Shar-Pei puppies (the ones with all the wrinkles), everyone wanted to just have a puppy photoshoot! What a delightful thing to hear!

So the photoshoot occured and the five little puppies were absolute hams for the camera...simply adorable. The picture posted is of the five puppies in a basket. The puppies were six weeks old. That basket is only about 18" wide and 9" deep. Isn't it an adorable photo? (No, I didn't take it.)

During the puppy photoshoot my husband Ken saw all the huge fancy cameras and he knew I wanted one of my own. So for that Christmas he did purchase a NIKON D200 camera for me. I was thrilled. I didn't have a clue what I was doing, but I was thrilled to have the camera. I knew I had to get more involved with the photo adventures camera club on a more regular basis. And I did.

When I first joined the club, there were mostly Canon cameras in use, and just two or three NIKON users. Today, a few years later, it's about half Canon users and half NIKON users.

The thing I like the most about the club is the people are friendly, they want you to learn your camera so much and enjoy photography that they share their knowledge with you, always willing to help. They make it fun, and trust me, learning these new complicated cameras can be frustrating.

So as soon as you feel you have your camera pretty well down, you realize you have more to learn because no matter how good of a photo you take, you need to tweek them a little on the computer. That's not easy to do or easy to learn. I'm still learning! But it's fun, I'm not complaining!

Tonight at the meeting they had their slideshow presentations. It's a fun night where all you do is sit back and enjoy the presentations of the other member's mini "movie", most of which are set to music. The variety tonight was plenty. I made one and at the end everyone said "AWWW" which made me feel good.

I may not have done much creative today, but I did have a good night at the camera club meeting and that's good enough for me.

Tomorrow I must work on the Spring Fest I am planning for the North Port Art Center. I need to buckle down and really push the event.

Hello and welcome to my world!

My name is Kathleen E. Kelly and I am an artist foremost, but I have also co-authored two novels. The names of the novels are "Nina's Corner" and "Life in San Argle", of which both are available on amazon and can be downloaded into a kindle.

I have been married for six years to my wonderful husband, Ken. He co-owns a paint company. Life with Ken is one adventure after another, whether it's gambling and seeing shows in Las Vegas, traveling for vacations or just going to Wal-Mart, it's always fun. We truly enjoy each other's company.

I enjoy painting, writing, reading and photography. I'm currently learning photoshop CS3, my new NIKON D200 camera, and starting to co-authoring my third novel. I enjoy going on photo shoots, and being on the computer. I like to tweet photos, and I'm trying to learn digitial scrapbooking.

My mother passed on about six years ago, but my father is still alive at nearly 86 years old and he is in good health, good spirits, and he even has a facebook page!

I have lived in PA, NJ, and FL. My senior year of high school I was the school mascot. Yes, I was the Red Rover Bulldog! I had a blast doing it! I also cheered in high school. In college I partied a lot, but I still remain friends with many of those people.

Years ago, I owned my own art supply store and taught approximately 200 students a week. It was very hard work and I found I didn't have time to do my own work, so I closed up my shop which was a bittersweet decision. I still keep in touch with many of the people I taught from back then.

I have worked with students starting at age four to ninety-six. I've taught oils, acrylics, pastels, watercolor, cartooning, cartoon/filmmaking, portraiture, sculpture, pen & ink, and drawing classes to a wide variety of students from after school venues, to Edison College, to my own business, to adult education to private lessons. I've enjoyed it all, but now I am retired and I am enjoying working on my own artwork, not preparing something for a lecture, or helping a student or working on a commission. I paint for me now and it's wonderful.

I like planning big events, especially art events. Perhaps that's why the local art center, the North Port Art Center now has me chairing the fundraising events! I also like things organized, so I've been asked to take over the scheduling of art classes. I like volunteering. The minute that it's no longer fun, I'm out.

I suffer from Chron's disease. I'm in remission but it's still difficult to live with. But I always think it could be worse.

My favorite quote which has gotten me through so much in my life, is Psalm 37:4 which reads; Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart."

Any questions just ask. I'm new to blogging on this site, but I plan on keeping it updated. See you then!