Student Art Show Invitation

For the first time in the seven years that I have been teaching art classes, I'm hosting an art exhibit for my students to display their work! I've long thought that these endeavoring artists who work so hard to improve their skills, should have a place to display their triumphs with family and friends. I'm so excited to give them that opportunity this spring.

Since this show is about the student's work, I thought it would only be fitting for me to use elements that they have painted, and I put them together into a lively spring invitation.

I had my advanced Wednesday students each paint certain items that could go in a wreath. We decided on including watercolors of fruit, flowers, blossoms, eucalyptus, olives, feathers, and branches. Since Kerry Kisinger of the Orange Door Gift Boutique in Oviedo has been kind enough to allow us to display the art in her beautiful shop, I wanted oranges and citrus fruit to be the focal point/theme.

After we decided what we wanted the wreath to include, we picked who would paint what. ​In truth, I couldn't resist painting the fruit myself since you know I'm a sucker for painting food! The rest of the components were all done by 5 ladies who have painted with me for a few years now. I could not be more proud and amazed by their progress! A few of their paintings are featured below:

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Rough scan of soft loose roses by Susan Giarrusso

Rough scan of quick background branches by Holli Luther

Rough scan of olives by Joan Kelly

That week, each of us set to work painting our assigned wreath elements and brought the paintings back the following week to share in class. Now that we were together again, I scanned each painting and used Adobe Photoshop to remove the background paper color and clean the edges up around the watercolor art. Removing the backgrounds was the most time consuming part, because each piece needed to have no background so that they could overlap one another on the wreath and have what is underneath peak through. 

Once that labor intensive part was finished, it was time for me to play in Photoshop. I got busy layering and moving around the different elements. This was fun work for me. I'm always grateful when my graphic design background collides with the watercolor world!

When we met again the following week, I had it almost finished placing everything into the wreath. We looked at it again together and the student's keen eyes helped us make decisions on final tweaks and adjustments.

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Eucalyptus elements by Pat MacLaren with background paper removed. Ready to put into the wreath.

Here is just the wreath alone that went behind the text in our lovely invitation.

I had the small invitations printed on card stock at my favorite local print shop: Whitney Printing in Oviedo. They do a great job on everything I send their way. I'm a big fan of printers who pay attention to detail. The guys at Whitney know I'm particular about the final output of my prints, and I appreciate that they're always looking out for me as their client.

You are welcome to come and join us on April 19th at the Orange Door Gift Boutique to see all of the great work that these local Oviedo and Winter Springs artists have been creating!