I don't know about the rest of you but I have spring fever so bad! And it doesn't help that the warm weather has come like 5 weeks early this year. My lilacs are in full bloom and they usually do that the first week of May. But I'm not complaining! I want to put out annuals and I know its too early - today its only 50 degrees and tonight we have a freeze warning. Today I spent a few hours crafting and painting. One of the projects is decorating bowling pins. Never have done that but it was fun! They're for a fund raiser called "Strike Out Hunger" and will be auctioned off. The merchants around town were asked to participate and donate a couple of decorated pins. No rules - so I made mine a Flapper Girl and a Santa.

Well, bad news about my catering kitchen. This county has incredibly strict Health Dept. laws, and I would have to install a commercial septic system for the kitchen. Kind of anal, if you ask me, when we wouldn't be using a tremendous amount of water. I priced the systems, and they fall anywhere between $10,000 and $30,000. On the bright side, my students will be happy to have a painting studio to come back to. A few of them have contacted me wanting to come back to class, so maybe my teaching days aren't all behind me. :)

This is what kept me busy last night - marzipan hot dogs!

New ventures

Last spring my classes dropped of significantly, and the store that bought my painted furniture slowed down to a crawl as well. Blame it on the economy. How many of you can empathize? My studio, which is a converted 4-car garage, is just sitting unused. It's a great space, with lots of lighting, counters, and work surfaces. Sounds kinda like the perfect kitchen, doesn't it? I'll get back to that...

On May 6, 2011 my good friend Shannon and I opened Diggity, a gourmet hot dog shop. We have a little storefront on the courthouse square in Danville. I always thought we needed a little diner downtown, but after brainstorming for a long time, we decided on something that Danville didn't offer: hot dogs. Unless you went to the gas station, there was no where to buy a hot dog in this town. Plus we didn't want to live at the place 24/7, and a breakfast-dinner venue would require that. Fast forward to now -- business is great! We have survived the slow walk-in traffic of the winter months by catering events. And I wouldn't have dreamed it would be as successful as it has been. We run the shop ourselves, and each work only 3 days a week, 4 hours each day. Cushy. And it leaves me so much time to paint on my own. Now I can paint for myself, and not with the intention of selling it for grocery money. It's more fun this way.

We've catered such large events that we've had to hire six or seven people to help, and our little restaurant is too small to prepare for such large events. So the decision was made that we would convert my studio into a catering kitchen. In this state a commercial kitchen has to be certified, so we will be able to do a lot in it once we move in ovens! Curious about Diggity? Check us out at http://www.diggityrocks.com/.

Saving some $$$

I can't remember the last time I had something professionally framed. The cost is just plain offensive. So I get frames at yard sales mostly. Or I'll go to thrift stores or consignment shops and shop for them - paying no attention to the artwork in them. One of my students, Terry, gave me some artwork that her office was throwing out. I only wanted them for the frames, and this pile of frames had to be worth $3,000 at least! So I've been painting to fill these frames. The big one in my profile picture (below) was perfect for the barn painting, which I did on masonite.

Last night I finished this acrylic on paper. It looks like watercolor, I know. It's not my favorite technique, but the frame had glass, so I knew it had to look like watercolor. (I once entered an acrylic on canvas board in the county fair, and they took off points because I had put it under glass. I knew it didn't have to be under glass, but those canvas boards like to warp, which this one did - and the glass flattened it out.)

This is a look along the the east side of the Danville square. I had a photo of it, and took much of the elements from it. But I cut out the lamp posts, road signs, and a lot of the building fronts, so the painting has glaring errors in perspective and logic. What the heck :).

I picked up these tiny canvases with easels at Walmart -- aren't they cool? I decided to paint a series of barns on them. They are only about 5 inches tall. I stained the wooden easels. Next trip I'm going back for more!

Welcome!

When I got an email from Microsoft Office Live that they were pulling the plug on their free website server, I panicked. For over 8 years I had loaded photo after photo onto that webpage, www.kerrytrout.net. It's where I sold everything as well. My patterns, CDs and most importantly, my Liquid Shadow. So in an attempt to save everything, I've opened this blog (thank you, Google). What I have found out is that making a blog is not easy, but after trying out several ones, I have come back to Blogger -- this is one place I don't have to learn html code to change my font size! Can you believe they make it that complicated?