Bellevue Arts Show

This weekend Zig and I went to the Bellevue Arts and Crafts Show...our first real date (not involving furniture shopping or home depot) in several months. We don't have a lot of time to get out to art galleries so this is a great place to go and see lots of very good artists and their work all in one spot. It's much more artsy than crafty. The food was great too...an unexpected surprise. We had an incredibly moist blackened salmon salad and some homemade scones. We had so much fun and found two artists whose work we really loved. One artist, Carolyn Reynolds, had these amazing gold leafed paintings with hummingbirds. They were very simple and the colors gorgeous. They reflected the light so beautifully. We couldn't decide which one we liked most because they were all wonderful.

The other artist we really connected with, Amy Melious, had lots of really beautiful pictures with water and landscapes. Water is a element our house is missing so I've been wanting some artwork with water, particularly the ocean. Water is just so calming, and I could use some calm. But the picture I loved most by this woman was one of poppies. Zig invited her over so we could see some of the artwork in our house. She stopped by Monday on her way back to British Columbia. When she held the poppies up on the wall in my kitchen, they brightened the room. Plus they will go well with my tomato orange colored dining chairs I ordered several months ago(and am having a wee bit of buyers remorse on, but that's another story!). Anyway, the size she had is too small so we are going to talk about her making a much larger one.

Saturday I went back to the show with the girls mainly to try and decide on the hummingbird painting. Sela was dying to go and had been asking me all about it since she found out we went. She was so interested in all the different art forms represented I could have spent hours there with her. With the girls present and the light shining perfectly on the paintings, we were immediately able to decide which hummingbird picture to choose and we bought it. It was unanimous. Sela was very inspired by the art show because she has been trying out some new things with her art this past week. Fun to see.

Below is the hummingbird picture but a photograph does it no justice. The colors are all off and it is blurry, but I tried.

























The first pictures below are of Sela's hand drawings. This is something she started before the art show. I'm not sure what exactly spurred the conversation on this time, but Sela has been asking me questions again about segregation and if it was really true that black people used to have to ride in the back of buses. We've had this discussion many, many times and she still doesn't understand. That's a good thing I think. After we talked, she painted these pictures showing how "it doesn't matter what your skin color is, we can all be together."

Nina has also been branching out on her drawings. She's done some water pictures and right now she is focused on these little ponds with dots all around. It's fun to see her trying some new things as well.





"Faith"
by sela




"We Can Be Together"
by sela


"Show Kindness"
by sela


"Splash-
time"
by sela


"Boat Crash"
by nina



"The Time of Love"
by Nina



"Wind blow"
by sela


"Amber Sky"
by sela