A Brilliant, Gorgeous, Talented, Fabulous Day. . .

"We ask ourselves, 'who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' 

Actually, who are you not to be?"

-- Marianne Williamson

It was a Brilliant, Gorgeous, Talented, Fabulous day Saturday as I taught my latest class at Venus Studios in Palm Desert, CA. The colors were bright & poppy, the students were sweet & lovely and the art was altogether joyous. 

So, for todays artistic offering, I thought it would be fun to share some of the class works in process. Wanna see? Okay good! Here we go:

Mimosa's and watercolor crayons? Um, but of course!

Step 1: Creating collaged backgrounds

Step 2: Adding color, depth and details

Step 3: Learning to sketch a whimsical portrait

And Lastly: Putting it all together.

See? It really was a Brilliant, Gorgeous, Talented & Fabulous day! Anddddd I personally loved every minute of it.

Oh! And speaking of loving every minute of it: believe it or not, The Summer of Color 5 begins in just six short weeks from today! Um yeah. That's true. Just six tiny Mondays from today. Pop over to the SOC5 Facebook page for more. 

Wheeeeeeee. . . .

To Love, Art & Being Fabulous,

Kristin xo

Now I've Really Gone & Done It . . .

"We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we're curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths."

- Walt Disney

Oh my! It's been that long since I've blogged. In my defense, this Summer has just flown by: it feels as if The Summer of Color just ended and now we're getting ready for back to school! But, although I've been quiet around here, I have been busy on the art front. As a matter of fact, I've been really busy with exciting new projects and upcoming opportunities. 

But I digress. It all started a few weeks ago when a friend of mine called "out of the blue" and announced that I "really should have" a dot.com address. She felt that it was time to take my art to the next level and offered to help me set it all up. Since I have no earthly clue how to create a website, I accepted her gift and excitedly went about gathering what I needed on my end to make it happen. There were bios to write, photo shoots to take part in (and let me say here that I'd rather have a root canal than have pictures taken) and art galleries to assemble.  I was getting a website! And I felt, for lack of a better way to put it, so legit. 

Now, as I write this I want you to know that I don't really believe in coincidences. I believe that people come into our lives for a reason, even if we don't always know why at that time. And what my friend didn't know when she felt compelled to help me was that just that morning I had been invited to teach an art journaling class at a local venue and needed a dot.com to connect my site to theirs. My career goals of teaching again were coming to fruition and my friend was there to help, even though she may not have known why at the time. 

SO here it is: my brand-spanking-new website. You can now find me here and at KristinVanValkenburgh.com. Oh! And along with the new website came something else that I had yet to do: create an art community on Facebook! So now - along with our Summer of Color page - you can also play with me year-round here on our pretty little Facebook page. I'd love it if you'd join me by "liking" the page. I promise it will be a fun place to hang, and that there are more surprises (that I can hardly contain myself from spilling!) on the very near horizon.  

In the meantime, I hope your Summer is going well, that your dreams are coming to fruition and that you too are finding excitement in the new. 

Until next time,

Kristin xo