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Parents are always asking me where their children can exhibit art. I do not readily know of an art guild for kids in the area, but they have great children and youth art contests in Ascension Parish. My grandkids and youth students have entered these contests and won quite a few ribbons. River Regions Art Association is having their exhibit Fish, Flora and Fauna Feb. 6-28. Also, the next Art Gumbo Market will be on Mar. 10, along with the Youth Art Show “March into Art.” The River Regions Gallery is located at 1835 N. Magnolia Ave. in the heart of Gonzales and can be contacted online at artgumbo.com or call Donna Braud at 225-844- 8406.

A selection of art from LAAG’s Winter Judged Show is now hanging at the Baton Rouge Little Theatre. If you missed seeing this show at Independence Park, you can still catch some of the paintings. The theatre is located at 7155 Florida Blvd. Business hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday or you can see the art at the time of your play. The January show entitled “Hang Over” is now hanging at the Independence Park Theatre Gallery, Tuesday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Are you working on those New Years' resolutions? The weather has been so bad, now is a good time to clean all the clutter out of the studio and do some good winter painting. There is always a lot of spring judged shows in Baton Rouge, so you can plan ahead. Now is also a good time to catch sales if you are planning on upgrading camera equipment, etc. for spring photo shoots. I will be upgrading my camera for my trip to Paris and London for sure. I am still using a 3.0 mega pixel and the resolution is low and much too grainy for enlarging images.

One of the hardest things for me to do is to get a large body of work painted for continuous exhibiting. Since I teach art, it seemed that for a year or two, all of my paintings were for lessons I had put together for my students to paint. Then about a week before an exhibit, I would go through tons of photos looking for the right one for inspiration, reference, etc. Not any more. I started the following procedure last year, and it is working great.

Future paint selections are now stored for easy retrieval. When I take a great photo that I instantly know will be instrumental for a future painting, I print out a color 8.5” x 11” for reference and enlarge a 16x20 black and white copy for transferring, or arranging the original composition, etc. and slip it all down into a plastic sleeve and label the sleeve by subject and the name of the jpeg. The jpeg is saved by the same name on my hard drive, under the file by subject: Mardi Gras, floral, etc. It was so easy for me to do a Mardi Gras painting last week. I just pulled out the sleeve that was ready to paint. Simplicity works! That is one of my resolutions for 2007 – simplify!

Fun days are ahead with Mardi Gras quickly approaching and spring will be here before we know it. Now is the time to get your children's art out and start to plan for spring painting and exhibiting. Be sure and simplify to free up more time for the things that you love to do. Link up and let me hear what’s going on in your art world.

Happy Painting!