Kennett High School Art Festival

Last week I had a lot of fun participating in the Kennett High School Art Festival. Artists from the community were invited to demonstrate their craft and exhibit their work along with student work. I brought in copies of our Butterfly Kisses Book, as well as prints from the book, mixed media works on paper and paintings from my Koi Pond Series. 

A table of Butterfly Kisses books with
Kaleidoscope of Color
Acrylic on canvas on th easels behind

This event was on the heels of the Kennett Middle School Career Day with at least another two concerts in the district, a Choral at the High School and Band and Orchestral at the Middle School in between. It reminds me how fortunate we are to have our children in a school district that values and (still) supports the arts.  (and yes, they do also have a strong athletics program.)

We also put a large roll of paper and had conte and pastels available for students to draw on all day.  It was a big hit.... as were the ice pops for sale form La Michoacana- a favorite local homemade ice cream store in Kennett Square.  (coconut is my all time favorite!)

Local artist Charles Lewis sharing prints of his
scratchboard art with KHS students 

Watercolorist Annie Strack painted all day 

to the awe and appreciation of students and community

A day of Art

Weathering the Storm

Watercolor marine artist, Annie Strack is this week's guest blogger.


This particular painting in my collection is one that carries a high value to me. It came to me in the fall of 2005, about a month or two after Hurricane Katrina. 

©2012Delaina LeBlanc

Many of my artist friends lived in St Bernard Parish, and the storm scattered everyone far and wide. I was able to contact a few of them after the storm, and we made arrangements to meet up in order to try to re-band our little artist guild. Unlike my friends in St Bernard, I didn't lose my home and everything in it. High winds and flying debris had tore the roof off my house and crushed my car, but I was spared from the worst of the disaster. I gathered up whatever extra art supplies I had in my studio and boxed them up so I could take them to the meeting and share them with my friends. Another artist friend, Delaina LeBlanc, heard what I was going to do, and she brought several boxes of her own art supplies for me to add to the pot. Among her items was this lovely painting. She was hoping that one of the artists might re-use the canvas by painting over it. She didn't even know any of these people, and she had her own storm losses to to deal with, but she wanted to help in any way that she could. I asked her if it was alright if I kept this painting for myself, because I felt it was too beautiful to be painted over. She pointed out that it was just an quick study from her younger days and not really a finished piece of art, but she gave it to me anyway. That's the true value in this painting -- friendship.

Annie Strack is an award winning classically trained marine artist who teaches, writes, and curates  when she is not painting- or checking out the art scene in her fairly recent home of Chester County, PA.