working with HELEN SHAFER GARCIA, artist

The mixed media art class that I am currently involved in had a wonderful substitute teacher this week: HELEN SHAFER GARCIA, a local {San Diego county} artist who is a very busy working artist ... she teaches, she paints for local publications, she is involved with a local art museum ... she's a busy lady! We were fortunate to have her share a technique with us on Monday where we took a collage piece as our background, drew a "TREE OF LIFE" image, as simple or as fanciful as we liked, on top -- in pencil -- and then, using NEGATIVE VALUE SHADING, we made that Tree of Life "pop" ...

Helen's STASH BUCKET of colored & graphite pencils

Walking around the room, seeing everyone's unique work coming to life, was so much fun. And so humbling!

Here, some photos of Helen demonstrating the technique to us all:

the "inspiration" - a finished piece by Helen, some posters with birds and butterflies ...

Helen demonstrating the shading technique ...

Helen's amazing, beautiful work ... WOW !!!

And here, a link to Helen's own website -- she has a blogspot, too, full of creative entries -- you can access her blog right from her website:

http://www.helenshafergarcia.com/

I can't wait for Monday, to see how everyone's project is turning out ... and to have regular instructer, Jane LaFazio, back in our midst.

-- Princess Magpie

by the way, MY project is not yet ready for it's close up ... ;-)