Expression Live This Sunday! **UPDATE**

Edit 10-02-11: Sorry ya'll, I just heard that Expression Live been cancelled due to the 50% chance of rain later today. :( I'll keep you posted on when it's rescheduled!

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More info at www.expressionlive.org

Looking for something to do this Sunday and are in the DC/MD area? Come check out this FREE event happening in Downtown Silver Spring hosted by local church The Bridge which is also based in the Silver Spring area. As the flyer above says, there will be music, art (complete with live painters), giveaways and much more. It should be a really great time, and the weather is looking like it is going to hold up! So bring yourself, bring family, or whomever you want and be ready to see some wonderful things.

It's also a back to school drive! So if you're in the giving spirit, they will be accepting lightly used clothes and new school supplies. Think backpacks, winter coats, notebooks, pencils...the whole nine yards. The Bridge has partnered with the Montgomery county based non-profit organization, Hearts and Homes for Youth which serves troubled children and youth. It is an amazing organization that has given hope and comfort to so many at-risk youth in the area, helping them achieve second chances at life when the odds were stacked against them. Any participation would do so much good for this great cause.

Oh and by the way, Yours Truly is going to be one of the live painters that I mentioned above. :) Would love to see you there!

ASW Giveaway!!

...And now so do I.

A few posts back I mentioned that I just had my first bloggerversary. So to celebrate I thought that I would do a giveaway for you all. Why not, right? I'm going to give away a $25 gift certificate from one of my favorite places to buy art supplies, Art Supply Warehouse! Hey, I share when I can. If you've never heard of that site then definitely check it out, they sell a lot of quality art supplies and brands at decently discounted prices. So if you're an artist, or know one, or are in the doghouse with one, you might want to get in on this.

In order to be eligible to win, all you have to do is "like" the Purple Paintbrush Facebook page (if you're already a fan then you are automatically entered). OR if you're an artist and would like to show your work on Purple Paintbrush, then send in your submission to apurplepaintbrush@gmail.com to be featured! That's it! Those who do both will have twice the chance of winning. :)

I'm always happy to see what other artists are doing, even it it's stick figures. I would be honored if you chose this space to be another platform to get your work out there! So if you're interested in showing your work on Purple Paintbrush, please check out the Star Artists link in the left side menu under Pages. I'll take whatever you'd like to show!

The deadline to enter the contest is Wednesday, October 5. I will randomly choose a winner of the gift certificate next Friday. If you're a family member of mine then you are ineligible to win. Sorry. (See you at Christmas!)

But Is It Art? Fair in DC

On Friday I checked out a DIY art show at Wonderbox in DC (near NY and FL Ave, NW). It's called But Is It Art? Fair and they showcased over a dozen local artists and their efforts in the contemporary art scene. I didn't get to take any pictures inside because I felt weird taking pictures of the artwork without permission, but I got a couple of shots of some cool things outside of the building. It was raining though so I couldn't get everything I wanted. :( Might have to make another trip to that area again someday.

This dude shows you the way.

A mural leading up to Wonderbox.

Office Desk Steez: Post-it Portrait #2

Hey, sometimes you just don't care.

I doodled another "post-it portrait", complete with raggedy head of hair. The tank top I completely made up, but the scruffy hair was about right. haha

The blank face was pretty much how I felt at the moment.

Cool Stuff: April Harrison Journal

April's Song, April Harrison.

Recently I had to stop into the bookstore to buy a new journal. My recent one is getting down to its last pages (it's been an eventful year!). If there is anything that I can say I actually "collect" it'd be journals. I've been writing in them since about 8th or 9th grade and I still have all of them. I get embarrassed for MYSELF sometimes when I go back and read some of the things I wrote, haha. But it's also great to see where I've been, remember good/bad times, and compare it all to where I am now. I've found that there's always room to learn about yourself. Writing in journals is such a habit that it's something that I NEED to do in my life. So helpful.

Office Desk Steez

"self-portrait"

My name tag at work.

I don't know, I've always wanted to to a "portrait" of the back of my head. So I just did it. I'll probably do more of these post-it portraits...

Where it all started...

I've been really preoccupied with work and homework lately so I haven't had too much time to post like I want to. Sorry!! But I did want to push myself to make time for this particular post because it was around this time last year that I started up this blog. Soooo I guess that would make this my 1st Bloggiversary!! (is that even how you spell it?!)

Cue the confetti and triumphant horns.

Anyway, I thought that I would take things waaay back and talk about the first piece of artwork that truly inspired me. I was about 20 years old I think and I went to the National Gallery in DC for a field trip with my art history class. The main exhibit featured English artist Thomas Gainsborough and a vast collection of his portrait work and landscapes. In one of the rooms was this painting of a famous dancer in the 1700s:

Giovanna Baccelli, Thomas Gainsborough 1782. Oil on canvas.

Entranced, I was. It was the first time I felt a connection to a particular piece of artwork or artist. It also inspired me to make my first real decision about a career as an artist: to be a portrait painter. Though I had no idea how to make that happen, seeing that exhibit made the dream seem so possible. It literally changed my life!

Found Art: Animal Portraits at Gentle Barn!

Also while I was away on vacation, my friends and I visited The Gentle Barn in Santa Clarita. The Gentle Barn is a farm sanctuary for abused animals. The kind folks there spend countless hours dedicated to rehabilitating the animals, restoring their spirits and their trust in humans. It was a really nice experience because it really did feel very peaceful there. The animals were really hot because the weather was scorching that day, haha, but they looked happy. I was surprised at how at ease they were around so many people. Even chickens and turkeys allowed people to pet them! I'd never seen that before. I also had never been sneezed on by a horse before then, but hey I guess there's a first time for everything. As it turns out, it isn't any better or worse than getting sneezed on by a human - I'd still just rather not get sneezed on.

Hellooo Introverts

Ha

Can I rant for a sec? Then we'll get back to the regularly scheduled program, I promise.

Okay so yesterday I had briefly mentioned being an introvert, and immediately I thought of a post from Magnet For Foolishness that my friend shared with me a few weeks ago. If you're reading this and you're an introvert, I think that you will appreciate the things that the author, Sonya, brings to light.

To piggyback off of her points, I do think that introversion is something that gets misunderstood time and time again, often being confused with shyness. And I think it's worth bringing up because many, many artists are pegged with the stigma of being socially awkward, brooding, anti-social personalities when in a lot of cases that's not the truth at all. I take great offense when people treat introversion like a behavioral or psychological disorder, and think that by pushing an introvert to be more outgoing is the way to "fix" them. Uh-huh, that's nice and all...except that we actually don't need to be fixed. It's very insulting. I've dealt with that many times throughout my life, from family and friends alike. So Introverts, trust me, you are not alone! Mama knows. A shy person that's afraid of people, is overly self-conscious, and insecure might need some outside help; but not an introverted person. An introvert is simply self-contained, self-satisfied, and independent. We are thinkers.

Found Art: Downtown LA

Shakespeare?? Is it thou?

I went walking around downtown LA recently on a "food crawl" (delicious, by the way), and came across this intriguing piece of work on one of the buildings. Please forgive the image quality, I had to use my camera phone haha. In case you can't tell, those are birds coming out of the guy's arm and on his chest is a heart kind of combined with an engine.

As a typical introvert, I appreciated the introspective expression of the face and posture. Overall I think it's one of those "weird, in a good way" kind of paintings. It looks like Shakespeare to me, though obviously not an exact interpretation of the poet we're used to seeing throughout the years. I'm thinking it might be a portrait of the artist as Shakespeare + The Thinker? I don't know, I'm definitely taking wild guesses! But that's part of the fun when looking at some pieces - trying to pull some sort of meaning out of what you're seeing, be it your own or what the artist wants you to see. Either way, whoever did it is certainly a talented person and really had something to say. It wasn't necessarily part of our tour, but it made us all stop and talk about it at least for a few minutes. I thought it was worth sharing!

If anyone knows who did this, please let me know!!