Are you ready for this week's painting class? Bare Winter Trees will be an enchanting creation experience. I encourage you to relax and let it take you on a little journey. You may be surprised at what comes through into your work. I'm glad this one won the poll and I'm looking forward to playing out a couple of ideas floating around in my head.  

Happy New Year to you all!

I wish for each one of you the blessings you need and the wishes you wish for yourselves and your loved ones.  

I know I am blessed to be part of the Dumb Industries family, and I am excited about where we will go with our painting classes in 2025. 

It is hard to believe we are at the end of another year. We have only one more painting class until 2025. I want to start the new year with some fresh art, so Mark and I have been watching MST movies that we hope have some ideas for images that I can turn into a class. Several so far have nothing I can use. Lol. At least one I couldn't even finish watching, but I have found some good ones too. I've also got some ideas for my second Saturday Painting With Jackey class.  I'll get them done and in the polls for January.

Blessings to you, your friends, and your family at this busy time of year. I hope you find time to do things you enjoy and with people you care for. I truly enjoy the time you choose to spend with me and the art you create and share with all of us. These painting classes have become more than I imagined when we began. I've watched you grow and permit yourself to explore new ideas and experiment with style and colors. I have seen my work develop as you inspire me. It is a beautiful symbiotic experience for me and I look forward to continuing into the new year.

Welcome to December. Our poll results are in and show that for our December 14th class, Sun Over Clouds got 50% of the total vote. It seems a good one for this class. It has been cold and overcast in many places. Raining and snowing in some places too, but the sun is still there even when we can't see or feel it. I look forward to experimenting a little with this painting as I've thought of other things I can do with it.

I hope you have a good day with whatever circumstances this day brings to you. There are a plethora of options. Drowning in family and wishing yourself elsewhere. Surrounded by loved ones you enjoy and may have missed. Maybe you're having a quiet day because that is just what you want or maybe you are lonely and missing close connection with others. Whatever it is for you, I wish you the best. I wish you blessings and I want you to know that I am happy you are in this small world of shared interests and this gathering of our sweet talented and fun painting group. I am looking forward to seeing what we create in the upcoming year.

Today's blog post starts with me telling you how much I love our Manos, MST, and Painting community and how much it means to me in times that challenge many of us and many of the people we love. When I first approached Chris and Dumb Industries about doing online painting classes, I never imagined the friendship, community, and inspiration our classes and time together have fostered. Thank you for going on this adventure with me as I explore the possibilities. You all are my inspiration.

It was great to see so many came to paint with us for Tattooed Elephant. I loved all the ideas and colors you share with us all. For myself this time, I wasn't feeling my painting coming out but I love the concept and wanted to play with it some more so I painted over the one I did in class and tried it out again. If you like the ideas you get from it, and try them again please share with us.

Hey All. Happy Halloween. I hope you are inclined to share your Halloween celebrations with us on our student FB group. Art, costumes, decoration. Share with us. I hope you could join us live for the class from New York. If not, check it out on the recording. It was such a blast getting to meet everyone who came in person. I watched it last night and loved seeing and hearing the participants.

Things have been very busy for me, and I'm happy to say it is great. The next painting class will be from New York and The Players Club. I'm excited about all the adventures I will experience. I hope you join our October 26th class where we will give tribute to the wives of Manos.  We will be streaming my first time doing a class with you online while doing an in-person class.  Not only that, but most of the Dumb-Industries crew will be there in the room painting with me. Too much information to put out here but there will be surprises for all, so I do hope you can be there for the live stream. I am SO looking forward to our group photo at the end.

I've been busy preparing for the trip to New York and am excited about all the new experiences I will have. One great thing will be to teach the October 26 Jackeys Hands of Paint class from the Library at The Players in Manhattan located at Gramercy Park. We still have a couple of openings if you want to, and are able to attend in person. All supplies and refreshments are included. Email chris@dumb-industries.com for information, and to reserve your space. In person class will be 3 - 5pm live online for all of you at home to join at the usual time of 3 - 4:30pm ET.

This is the month I head to New York to be part of a documentary being filmed in Manhattan at The Players. We still have a few spaces for the class I will be teaching from The Players Library on Saturday, October 25, from 3 to 5 p.m. EST. Snacks and beverages are part of the experience and all paint and materials will be provided for you to paint with me on canvas and with acrylic paint. As usual, we will record that class live for all our online students from 3 to 4:30 p.m. After class, any who would like to join will meet down the street to a local establishment to visit and have a bit more fun just hanging out. If you live in the area and can join us, or have any questions, please contact Chris to let him know you will be there. I would love to meet you in person.  

I am told we have new members to our growing family. Welcome! Thank you for coming to play with us while we explore art together, share and inspire one another. If you are new, feel free to check out any of the past classes we have done and please share your work to our student gallery so we can all enjoy your work. Also, please join us on Facebook where we can visit and get to know each other a bit.

It has been a big week or so with more to come. Last Saturday in our Paint Parties class, we got together to create our own peaceful riversides, and you made your magic. So nice to just go with the flow for a while. I hope it was as meditative and relaxing for you as it was for me. Please send  photos of your work if you haven't yet to chris@dumb-industries.com and emmy@dumb-industries.com so your work can be in the student gallery for us all to enjoy.

This upcoming painting class on Saturday of "Riverside" is just what I need this week. It is calm and meditative and offers  lots of space for other elements that may suit you more personally. I kept my design simple to give you that extra space to play with. Imagine yourself at your favorite place in nature near the water.  Maybe it is the ocean and you imagine shells. Perhaps you imagine a fish, a frog, or other little creatures. I am inspired by the river and waterfall near my home where Shanka and I go to get our feet wet and gather rocks to paint when we get back home. We usually take a painted rock or two back with us the next time we visit, to leave for someone to find.

Short blog post today. I've got a few different projects going recently and they are keeping me busy. I've got three film projects with the first one filming my role on September 15. It is a short horror film where I play the Home Owners Association Manager having to evict a young couple... for good.

I am especially proud of you who are afraid of spiders and came to class despite that, and how you faced those fears in such unique ways. The eight legged horse was a wonderful surprise and a great way to participate while finding a way to get through it with beauty.

Are you ready for our next class? Are you afraid of spiders? I think they are pretty awesome. Some can be awfully cute, like the jumping spider. In the painting I created to teach from, I was inspired by an image from The Giant Spider Invasion. It was a silly looking prop but I can't say I would have done better with the budget they probably had. Now that I've got jumping spiders in mind, I may change it up in our Saturday class. The actor who plays the Sheriff in the film played the Skipper in Gilligans Island, which I watched every week back in the day.

Another great class on Saturday. Thank you all for joining me in painting Poppies. I was having a bit of an off day and was very grateful our choice of subject was so calming and relaxing. I could feel myself letting go of stress and anxiety by the moment. I hope our classes together do that for you too. Our little community is growing as I see new names in the chat, and works of art in our student gallery. Please remember to share when you finish a piece. I love checking out the gallery to see what's new.  

It is creation time again. For our August 10th class coming up is Poppies and for our August 24th class The Giant Spider Invasion won the poll. I'm always happy with whatever you choose, but it will be good to do the poppies this week. They have been in the running for a while and I think the colors are perfect for August. The Giant Spider Invasion was fun to paint and I'm looking forward to seeing what you do with it. In the film, the sheriff was holding a gun when he saw the spider but I decided to put a phone in his hand. I thought it represented our current lifestyle of getting photos of everything, even if life-threatening. You can't prove it happened without pictures, right?