Studio Hours

I've been promising myself this ever since we moved to our wonderful location on Sawmill Rd. I'm going to take Fridays off except when we have classes or special events. Yeah! It's not that I don't have lots of work/painting/organizing to do at Artful Endeavors, it's just that I need sometime at home and for errands like grocery shopping. My husband and I both like to eat. So now I'm going to buy a large shovel and strong rake and begin to tidy up my house.

Just so you will all know, I'll be at Artful Endeavors on:

Monday 10am - 6p
Tuesday 10am - 4p, then I go to Cary for our evening class.
Wednesday 10am - 8p
Thursday 10am - 6p

Friday and Saturday when I have classes.

Tue and Wed I have classes all day.
If you plan to drop by, just be sure to call to make sure I haven't run out for a meal or an errand.

Adding New Classes

We've added a couple of classes to our schedule at Artful Endeavors.

I noticed some of my students taking notes on any scrap of paper they can find in their purse, so I decided that we need to paint a sketch/note book for their class notes. And we needed this note book to be some special.

I have acquired a selection of papers from my friend Gail Schmidt, a wonderful mixed media artist and digital paper designer, who has such beautiful, quality papers that she sells on her web site, www.shabbycottagestudio.com. These papers were the inspiration for my notebook design. Creating with the papers was so much fun, deciding what combinations of papers and colors I wanted to use,embellishing, and then adding a graceful daisy with paint, our special touch.

I teach the Mixed Media Notebook on Friday, Feb 22, 10am - 3p.

Also I've had interest in another Leaf Study class. Most of my students take this class at least 0nce. It's where we break down brush technique, side loading, brush care, as well as techniques for painting paint realistic leaves. Consider it decorative painting basics 202. There's so much good information in this class!

Leaf Study will be Saturday, March 29, 9a - 4p.


Register now!

Ann Kingslan Designed Still Life

I've just finished painting a design by Ann Kingslan MDA and love it. There was so much good learning in this piece. I just had to show it to you. We'll start painting this design in acrylics this coming Wed afternoon. There's still time to join us.

Heart Of Carolina Tolers

The Heart of Carolina Tolers is one of our chapters of the Society of Decorative Painters. This year I am serving as president and looking forward to a year of painting with all of our members. Each month, except when we have a seminar scheduled, one of the members teaches a project to the group.

In Feb I'm teaching my Rose Collage Bag. Again, Gail's beautiful papers along with photos of the New Dawn rose outside my back door were the inspiration for my Rose Collage Bag. I was very pleased with the results.


Our club meets every 3rd Saturday of the month in Durham. If you aren't a member already, we would love for you to visit us and you will probably want to join our group. To be a member of a local chapter you must be a member of the Society of Decorative Painters. If you are a decorative artist you should be a member of the society if you aren't already. As well as supporting the art that we love, you receive a excellent journal four times a year with great painting project lessons and all the scoop about decorative painting.

Here are web sites to visit to find out more about
Heart of Carolina Tolers www.hoct.org
Society of Decorative Painters decorativepainters.org

We have another chapter also in Raleigh full of fun, enturiastic painters. CODA at www.codapainters.org.

Painting With Ginger Edwards

Ginger is wonderful! She sent us landscape photos from which to choose and we wanted to paint both of these. What to do? Each time I would make a decision I would be dissapointed that we would not be able to paint the other one. Ginger is wonderful, she said we could paint them both over our two landscape days! So here they are.

The wonderful, Ginger "botanical", Zinnias are Friday and are painted on one of the delightful tin pockets that Ginger is known for.

And here are the two terrific landscapes that we'll paint on Sat and Sun on canvas.










There are still seats in the seminar so give us a call or email and register soon!
Detail are on the web site.

Painting Portraits

What a thrill to see how well everyone did with our portrait class!

We had a variety of experience with some of the painters painting a portrait for the very first time. And they all learned lots and learned that there is lots more to learn.

After becoming familiar with the techniques that we were using, our main focus was learning to "see" the shapes and contours that were in the faces we were painting.And the students are asking me to teach another portrait class. I'd love to. We'll schedule one in the near future. Watch the schedule for new classes and come join us.

These students are now familiar with the techniques that Ronnie Bringle uses for her portraits and are now qualified to take her portrait class at our seminar in April 08.

Here is a sampling of our works in progress.

And More Talent

Don't you just love seeing what our students have created.

Here is an award winning design by Linda Armstrong. It brought home 2nd prize in the 2007 NC state fair. This was a gorgeous rose she painted with Deanne Fortnam in a seminar.



Last fall we had a floorcloth workshop where the students created their own original designs. The beautiful rose is by Julie Yacos


and the wonderful coy are an original by Kathy Carson.


You can click on the photo to see a larger image.

Talented Students

Here are more of our student's wonderful paintings. We have such a talented crew and such fun.

Here is Nancy Kennedy. She did a great job with the candy canes. They look just like you could pull one out of the jar and eat it.









And the evening class also painted wonderful candy canes. Each one unique. Here are Kathy Carson and Maxine Frumkin with Mom, Max's Mom really but we claim her too. She joins us in class while Max paints and is a delightful lady, and artist.Amy Boyette painted a terrific box with lots of candy canes, sticks, and pepermint balls. Beautiful Amy!

And we're even ready for next Halloween! Did you notice the Christmas witch? Click on the photo to get a closer look.

Home From the Holidays

The whole month of December was like a wonderful holiday for me this year. I spent fun time with my husband and our families enjoying our two Christmas get togethers, day trips this year, which was nice since we are the ones that usually travel to the locations that are closest to our parents. We got to visit with our new niece, Maddy, again. She has grown so much even since Thanksgiving! Be sure to check out her picture on Rick's blog, www.rickwardphotography.blogspot.com.

We met new friends, visited with old friends, and got to spend several days with Gail and Leon visiting us. Gail and I always like to sharing ideas and always leave each other inspired in our art. How nice to have an inspiring artsy friend. And our husbands enjoy each other. How nice is that. We even had a "pit call" (this is what we call sitting around our fire pit where we were actually able to have a fire since it had rained buckets the day before and everything was wet) and ate pizza. Yes, in December! With the outside Christmas tree lighted and near us. Fun.

Gail helped me with my new Photoshop Elements program. I had been wanting to just sit and learn to use it more. Thanks, Gail! I have a lovely new return address label and actually remember a good bit of what she showed me.

After New Year I spent some more time learning more about my new computer programs. I got to explore some of those things that I told myself that I would check out "some day".

One thing that I got to do with my new computer is reenter all of my decorative painting address book for e mails, not what I wanted to spend time doing, but my e mail list had disappeared! I wish I knew what I did to make it disappear so that I can not do it again. My computer is way too smart for me.

And I even got a little painting done. Be sure to check out the upcoming projects.

Now I'm ready to see everyone and for classes to resume. I'm just so full of ideas for our painting. Come join me!

Jan 2008 Open House

What a great open house to start our year off! I saw familiar faces back from the holidays, new friends interested in decorative painting, and students from the past wanting to resume painting. It was so nice to see everyone and speak to them, although at events I never get to talk to any one person as long as I would like. We registered quite a few people for various classes and I handed out instructions for preps right and left.

Actually, students have been dropping in all week to get started with their projects. I had a wonderful holiday time and extended it as long as possible, but now I'm ready to get back to painting and especially see all of our painters.

Watch for seminar updates! And more classes added to our schedule!

Painting in the New Year

Here are a few more of our 2008 painting projects that we can look forward to.

Sunrise Ocean is a wonderful William Powell design that I originally painted with him many years ago in oils. We'll paint in acrylics of course.

The Paris Grocery is a great Linda Lock, altered art design, with texture and photo transfers.





The fruit basket was originally painted by Ronnie Bringle using her fun drybrushing techniques.

We'll learn lots of new techniques from all of these projects.

Holiday Spirit

The holidays are approaching quickly at Artful Endeavors and we are finishing up our 2007 paintings. Next week will be our last week of class for this year! If you would like to come on Wed afternoon next week, 12/12, we are having an open class where you can work on finishing a project. Just let me know if you plan to join us.

And, do plan to join us next week for lunch at 12 noon. We're saving our official holiday party until Jan 5, Sat, 10a - 2p, when we have our open house/welcome back to painting in 2008 party. Come enjoy more paintings from our students and teachers as well as Liz's art for sale. See the new projects coming up in winter 2008, sign up for classes, pick up instructions and surfaces, and bring friends. We'll have some delicious refreshments, too.

It is time to start thinking about Jan classes. The preps are ready for you at the studio. We have some exciting projects planned, many that a lot of you have requested. It's time to register now. Scroll down for the schedule. The web site will be updated soon also.

Please tell your friends and family that we have gift certificates that you can apply to classes or supplies.

After our classes next week, I will be out of the studio, taking some time to enjoy my family, friends, and the holidays. Be sure to come by next Mon, Tue, or Wed to catch me and pick up prep or supplies. I'll be back in the studio Jan 2 & 3, 2008.

Our seminar registration has been fast and furious. Ginger is putting the finishing strokes on our paintings and we should have photos soon. We still have seats available for all days.

Be sure to look at Ronnie's santa below. He is wonderful! Registration is open and seats filling.

We are almost full for our seminar with Ros in July. Call soon if you would like to paint with us. We'll see her paintings later this spring.

Have a great holiday and we'll see you soon.

Ronnie Bringle Seminar

Santa has arrived at Artful Endeavors! Ronnie Bringle's Santa that is. And he is wonderful.

If you haven't registered for our seminar with Ronnie, now is the time.

April 29 & 30 will be our portrait class where Ronnie will guide us in painting a person of our choosing.

May 2 - 4 we'll paint this wonderful Santa.

Check the web site for more details. We'll have this great wood surface available this spring.

Tom Preddy Artist

Student of the month:

Jimmy's Tractor is an original painting by Tom Preddy.

Tom started painting with us because he wanted to paint scenes from around his home in rural NC. His family has been so pleased with his painting that they are all getting in their requests for specific paintings. This is a painting of Tom's twin brother on his tractor in the tobacco field as requested by Tom's sister-in-law.

This is a secret, Christmas present, for Tom's brother, so don't tell Jimmy.

The other students and I were very impressed with Tom's creation and I wanted to share it with you. We'll look forward to seeing more or Tom's paintings.

State Fair Winners!

Our painters had a great showing at the NC State Fair's Decorative Painting Exhibit. I was proud of all of you. Here are some of the entries. Congratulations to all the ribbon winners.



Congratulations to Marlane Nason for winning Best of Show with her original Wine Bottle and Grapes plate. It is beautiful.

Mama Bunny is looking over my entries. The Candy Canes and Tulips took Best of Show for professional pattern. This is a beautiful Kerry Smith design that I painted in Traditions acrylics.



Fair entries are seen by thousands of fairgoers and are a wonderful way for us to share our love for decorative painting and show our good work. Start deciding what you would like to entry next year.