August is a month filled with vacations scheduled to be taken before school starts in about three weeks. That’s the fun stuff. Then, depending on how you look at it, there’s shopping for school clothes, class materials to be purchased and a flurry of activities in getting everything ready for another school year. For most of us who enjoy our various crafts and hobbies, August days aren’t as long as we would like. One of the things that I find fun is to take a Saturday trip to local yard sales and estate sales. My grandchildren enjoy seeing various items for sale and every once and a while a “treasure” is discovered. I am often amazed at pottery items and paintings that are placed out for sale. Our local Goodwill stores offer lots of donated craft items or kits, many prints or original paintings already framed and plenty of different items that can be purchased for a modest sum. As an artist, I find that there are some nice frames for my paintings available at prices that make my budget happy.
Depending on the weather, the month of August can give us an early start on changes in foliage colors in shrubs and trees. I find it an excellent time to give my grandchildren pastel chalks and paper so that they can practice coloring what they see. In our area, there are many beautiful parks that can be easily reached by a short drive. It’s a perfect picnic time and a time to pick up a pad and have fun drawing and coloring with your children. So many times I hear comments from my customers that they are positive they cannot do anything artistic. My suggestion to them is find a pad and pencil and start sketching what they see around them. An undiscovered artist may be hiding inside and they find themselves enjoying a new creative adventure.
For us here at Carter Works Art, it continues to be a time of part painting, weeding through old paints and arranging new shelves purchased to hold more supplies. Our work in cleaning the pouring tables and slip machines continues. I replaced our old shop vacuum with a new one, purchased at Home Depot. It runs much quieter and has a better air filtering system. Both the inside filter and the outside exhaust filter makes for less dust in the air. This machine comes with a lifetime warranty and is sold by Home Depot. It is their brand and I have been assured that if I have a problem, I bring it back to any Home Depot location and they will either repair or replace the unit. Knowing my active use of a shop vac, you can bet it will get a great workout by me. I’ll keep you posted on how useful I find the new features to be and how clean it helps me keep my studio area.