Today was the last day of the "Love of Art" kid's camp that I taught at the Columbia Museum of Art... Monday we made pinch pots, which is the basic form of ceramics. I think the kids really loved it! I'm glad I decided to switch from making paper-clay to just pinch pots. Paper-clay is really fragile and the kids could only dip pieces of tree branches in the paper-clay once... not really sure that would have worked well!!

Some of the counselors in the camp, also participated in making pinch pots! One lady made a piece that looked like a flower, and another counselor made a piece that looked like a strawberry. Pretty cool considering they had never worked in clay before.
Below is a photo of the pieces before they were fired. Since we only had one day to let them dry and then fire them... we dried them out in the electric kiln, slowly, at 100 degrees. Tons of steam came out of the kiln! I'm surprised nothing blew up... some of the kid's pieces were so thick! We had no other options for this, because we had to get the pieces back to the children this morning, so they didn't even have time to glaze or even paint them unfortunately. If only there was another day, then they could have decorated them.

I have some new minipops and plush dolls at the Christopher Park Gallery in Greenville, SC... which is located at 608-A Main Street across from the park. She also has a coffee cafe next door filled with awesome art... so go check it out if you are in the area! The website is: http://www.chickenmanart.com

I decided after using vox all these years, to make a plunge and move my blog archives to tumblr. I couldn't get my vox entries to copy to blogger, which was frustrating, but I was able to copy them to tumblr. I will keep the vox blog up... but will probably be mainly posting on tumblr. I really like the layouts of the site and it's simple format.

So check it out over at; http://jelene.tumblr.com - and make me a contact :)

I also like the fact that when I post I can also automatically submit to my twitter and facebook page...

I'm getting some paintings back that were on display at Lola Gallery. I will be listing those soon in my etsy shop. If you would like to be one of the first to check them out, join my facebook page for updates! Of you can email me directly, and I can let you know when I get those paintings posted. Most of them are poptoons and comic paintings. Lola Gallery, Roswell, Georgia is changing the items in their store and is focusing more on art toys and other cute items! I will still have minipops and plush in her store, so check Kristy's Gallery out if you are in the area!

I also still have several large paintings for sale in my etsy shop, that I had in a show in March. http://jelene.etsy.com

I am currently listing the remaining 6 paintings for sale in my etsy shop, that were featured in the USC show "Past, Present and Future" I had 8 pieces in the show. This was a huge student and alumni show at the McMaster College at the University of SC.

I have the pieces listed for sale in my etsy shop:
http://jelene.etsy.com

If you don't see a piece listed yet, please keep checking back. I will be listing them through out today. :)

I will have some new paintings in a show at USC (Univ. of South Carolina, Columbia) which starts tomorrow in the McMaster Gallery Art Dept., March 18th, from 6-8. The work will be on display for awhile, including one of my large ceramic vases, wooden sculptures and 6 of my original paintings.

This particular piece I decided not to hang in the show, because it really didn't fit with the other pieces in the show... so I'm offering it for sale in my etsy shop.

It's 24"x30" in size and it's called "The nightmare migraine and the invisible sumo baby"
Here is the listing for the painting: http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=42943643

I just set up a new blog featuring all new Twitter backgrounds that you can download for free. Every month I will try and post a new wallpaper! I set the blog over on blogger, so check it out... and link me on twitter @jelene
The blog is http://jelenetwitter.blogspot.com/

Right now I'm working on some new ones for spring and St. Patrick's Day!

I also have a new coloring book available in my etsy shop, featuring cupcakes! Cupcakes are still so popular I decided to make one... Would make cute party gifts for a girl's bday party! It's in printable pdf format, but I can also print them for you if you'd like.
You can purchase them over in my etsy shop- http://jelene.etsy.com

A customer emailed me about my "Picasso in a can" piece and wanted the design on an apron to wear in her art class. I redrew the design, which was a minipop painting, and made it into a graphic. I posted it in my Zazzle shop the other day and it won a "Today's Best Award - TBA" on the front page of Zazzle! You can check out how it looks on products in my zazzle shop... http://www.zazzle.com/jeleneart
I also have "Warhol in a can", "Tickles in a Can" and I would like to do more artists like, Matisse, Lichtenstein, Basquait and Pollock.

I discovered Amanda's wonderful font website the other week. I emailed her some of my doodles and she transferred them into a dingbat for me. You can download them here for free. http://kevinandamanda.com/fonts/fontsforpeas/pea-jelenes-doodles/
The set includes cupcakes, birdies, dogs, cats, Tickles Goldfish and Baby Dumpling!

Thanks Amanda! She's got some other fantastic fonts too. Check 'em out.

I was invited by my former professor, to come to an artist's workshop at the USC Ceramics dept. The workshop will have demonstrations by Chris Pettingill. He's a full time potter living in NY. Next week the ceramic sculptor Leigh Taylor-Mickleson will be at USC Ceramics. She makes abstract ceramic sculptures. Hopefully I will be able to take some photos and share them here.

Also, some good news. After struggling with getting some horrible spyware on my laptop, I was able to do a complete overhaul of my harddrive and reinstall everything without any problems. I now have a spyware blocker program to detect future occurrences like that. How frustrating that was to have my computer overtaken by some weird program!

I now have a link to my formspring questions page. I set this up several months ago and forgot about it, but now that I have the new website, I decided to embed it over on the sidebar. Or you can access the page here - http://www.formspring.me/jelene
Formspring is basically where you can ask me questions anonymously. So ask away! :)