You never know...

When we got together back in March to learn how to do origami boxes, it never ocurred to me that, one day, I'd be passing on what I'd learned to some classes of high school art students. Hey, I'm happily retired with more than 35 years of working in education behind me, so why would I want to be in front of a classroom full of kids again? But that's exactly what occurred yesterday!

Here's how it happened: Back in March I posted some photos of our origami session on my Facebook page. Recently, one of my FB friends, Kristin Duncan, who teaches art at Central, contacted me to tell me she'd seen the photos of the boxes and to ask if I'd teach her Basic Art students how to make the boxes. She said that the last section her students were going to study was form. She was trying to think of a fun, quick (and cheap) activity to do with them and she thought they would LOVE to make the boxes. She especially wanted to do something fun that they could do with their hands because it would be the last week of school and students tend to get antsy around that time. After some serious consideration (I wasn't the best learner when Melinda was teaching us!), I agreed and that's how I ended up teaching the skill to her 2 Basic Art classes at Central High School yesterday.

The kids were great! Not only were they polite and attentive, but they were also quite enthusiastic and seemed to be enjoying it a lot! Using pages from calendars donated by the Caribbean Museum Center for the Arts, my lesson was to teach them how to make a 4" square box with a lid. Half way through the 90 minute period I noticed that many of the students had proceeded on to adapting what I'd taught them to making smaller and even mini boxes! I didn't even know how to do that!

They helped each other and eagerly displayed their end products: All of them successfull made several 4" boxes, with lids. Quite a few of them went on to make mini-boxes, some no bigger than my thumb! One boy had gotten some ribbon and hung his lidded box from his backpack. Another decorated his box with some teeny flowers he'd found in the room. Still another made 4 mini-boxes that fit perfectly into his 4" box, making it a perfect place to store jewelry!

I was really impressed! Most important, the kids had fun and I did too! Ginger >

The Palms at Pelican Cove

What a joy to paint at The Palms on Pelican Cove Beach on Friday morning! It was a perfect beach day and we were all inspired by the loveliness!

There was a strong breeze on the beach: so strong that I had to hang my half-filled backpack from my easel to weigh it down to keep my canvas from shaking to the rhythm of the buffetting wind! Not complaining! The coolness accompanying those breezes were delightful! The waves coming into shore were impressive! Out at sea there were 10' swells!

It was a great plein air morning!

We had a good time painting at the Botanical Garden on Friday morning. The weather held, and we were all able to end up with paintings we liked. As you can see, some of us took on the challenge of doing a mango-related painting that could be a contender for the poster that will advertise the Garden's upcoming Mango Mellee event.

Ginger

Cane Bay Beach

I was working on a painting at home, so arrived at Cane Bay just in time for Show and Tell. The morning'd been gorgeous and the artwork was equally so! We thought we had a good spot to display our efforts, but I'm afraid Mother Sun sneaked onto some of the paintings while I was photographing them.

Here's the ppainting I was working on at home. It's almost done but I still have to add the whiskers and retouch the background. It's for the upcoming animal shelter fundraiser to be held later this month at Polly's. These are two shelter kitties... aren't they just adorable? I took the photo for this painting, just as the door to their cage was opened.

Ginger

Carambola Golf Course

The morning started out bright and shiny at the Carambola Golf Course. The reflections in the first pond I drove past were captivating and there was an egret standing under a small palm tree, beckoning me to paint it.

I drove up to the clubhouse and checked out the sugarmill and golf course, to see if anything else caught my eye.

I decided to drive back to the first golf pond and try to paint that egret along with the pond reflections. Of course, the egret was gone by the time I'd set up my gear but I spotted some pelicans in the trees nearby. Who woulda thought pelicans hung out at a golf pond? After all this time on St. Croix, I'm still learning new things! Around 10:45 I noticed rain clouds in the northeastern sky and decided to drive my car to a spot nearby, just in case. Sure enough, within 10 minutes the rain began and it rained hard enough for me to pack up my painting gear and stuff it all into my car. I sat in my car, patiently hoping it would soon clear up. Around 11:15, the rain finally stopped and I noticed that two pelicans had flown to the tree tops that hung over the pond.

Soon one of them spread its wings and posed for me. How could I resist getting my painting stuff out again and adding this proud prima donna to my painting?

When I got back to the club house, I found out that only five of us stayed until "show and tell." Everyone else left when the rain's threatened. We still had a good viewing and I was glad I'd persevered. Sandy's

Jan's

Debbie's

Ginger's

Elwin's

Three of us stayed for lunch. While we were eating, there was literally a "white-out" of rain that drenched the clubhouse for at least an hour!

Ginger