Bird Family

by Bryanna

Bryanna loves to draw birds and created this family of birds settled on a branch while I was busy with something else.  I Love the intense colors, nurturing mother bird and clouds that dance overhead!

The Fruit of the Loom Fruit Guys

by Jan

Again, I used Microsoft Paint to illustrate a Halloween costume and how to make it for an article online...but alas... Yahoo Voices shut down.  At least I still have my Fruity guys here!

Halloween Costume

by Jan

I drew this picture for an article I recently wrote to illustrate how a pair of fuzzy dice costumes would look as a Halloween costume! Actually, my daughters were dice one Halloween when they were around 7 or 8. I wish I had a picture of that!

"Family Portrait"

by Bryanna and Gma Jan

Bree and I started this painting (intended to be a portrait of a fictional family) on a school half-day. I finished it after she was picked up by her Mom.  Bree had discovered how we could zoom in up to 8x and really fine-tune our pictures, which has allowed us to start creating more detail in our pictures. We copied one daughter for the second, the Dad for the Grandfather, and one of the Twins for the second.

Can you pick out the mom and dad and their three kids?How about Grandpa? His Girlfriend?  Grandpa's girlfriend's twin sons?

Oh dear, this is getting addictive! I think this should be a comic strip family.....hmm.

"Mac's Zoo"

By Mac

Okay, well, I helped too, but Mackenzie designed the layout and decided what animals should be in her zoo.  She also did many of the lines for the fence and all of the sidewalk. Haven't you seen a pig in a zoo?  Come on!

"Bar Talk"

by Jan

Abstract image of a bar I seem to remember during my party heyday.  Can you tell the figures are reflections in the bar mirror?  The smoke is the most accurate part of the picture!

"Frosty"

by Trent and Mackenzie

Mac says Trent should really get credit, but i doubt he really wants to admit drawing it (he's "cool", you know).  Frosty looks posed for a Christmas card, doesn't he?

Trent was learning how to use the circle tool and other drawing lines in making Frosty. Trent actually has artistic talent underneath his athletic jock surface.  When he was about ten he painted the most incredible rendition of my patio area in acrylic paint, and also draws pictures of skateboarders.

"Candles Aglow"

by Bryanna

Completely designed by Bryanna. These candles are ready for any holiday!

"The Underground"

by Bryanna and Jan

This was Bree's idea and she had the whole design in mind. Those are ants and worms in their underground homes, in case you couldn't tell. It kind of makes my skin crawl a bit.

"Dancing Girl"

by Mackenzie

A girl dancing on a patch of grass.

"Suzie Sells Seashells Down by the Seashore"

by Jan

Just a day at the beach. Where's Suzie? I love how the spray paint can softened each layer and blends the ocean into the beach and sky.

"Spring Flowers"

by Mackenzie and Jan

Mackenzie and I created these flowers by copying, flipping, pasting and coloring different colors.  She wanted to put this picture on her wall.

"Earth, Moon and Sun"

by Bryanna

After creating our "Solar System" picture with Brandon, Bree wanted to make her own verison of that theme and came up with this earth, moon and sun rendition.  The one on the right is a half moon/half sun. Creative solution to conserving space in space, I guess?

"Who Let the Dog Out?"

by Kayla

Kayla pretty much whipped this one up one day just for laughs.  Sometimes I think the older grandkids don't want to admit this painting is fun, so they sneak one in when I'm not paying attention.

"School Recess"

by Bryanna and Jan

Bryanna and I spent hours one Friday night on this picture of a schoolyard.  I think we captured all the elements of the school playground she thought of.

"Eyes in the Dark"

by Brandon

Brandon snuck this dark picture in right before lunch one day.  He loves spooky movies and wanted to draw a Brandon version of a dark, scary corner of that movie world. I thought it was very creative and especially love the "death will come to THEE...." LOL

"Maccreature"

by Mackenzie

Mac designed this picture and chose the colors.  I asked her what it was and she said it was just a picture.  I think it looks like a head of some creature!

Kenzie's Kastle

by Mackenzie and Jan

Mackenzie wanted to draw her home.  I helped her design the structure with her instructions and she painted it.  I think she captured it pretty well other than that pink door!

"Red-Eyed Tree Frog Family"

by Bryanna and Jan

Bryanna and I had just watched a Discovery Channel show about Red-eyed tree frogs and decided to paint this picture.  Very cute, aren't they? The whole family is made from one frog drawing.  The others are stretched, flipped, or shrunken and pasted into place.  We drew the branch around the frogs after strategic placement.

"Set the Table"

by Bryanna

Bryanna's creative take on a table place setting.

"Night Sail"

by Jan

There's something very peaceful about this picture.  I have all the pictures on my screen saver, and when this comes up I hear Christopher Cross singing in my head..."Sailing, takes me away to where I've always wanted to be...."

"Junk"

by Mackenzie and Jan

Kenzie and I took turns drawing shapes and then coloring them once we were done.  When we finished, Mackenzie said, "It looks like junk."  And it does!

"Birds on a Wire"

by Bryanna and Jan

A twist on the bird theme.  There are actually only three originally drawn birds and the rest have been copied, flipped horizontally, and painted differently. 

"Lonely Desert Road"

by Jan

I had fun using perspective taking this lonely Arizona desert road off into never land.  I sure hope the Earth isn't really flat!

"The River"

by Mackenzie and Bryanna

This abstract river created entirely by Bryanna and Makenzie.

"Pink is for Girls!"

by Jan and Bryanna

We started this together, but I finished it myself after Bree was picked up by her Daddy. I got very hooked on getting it just right.  I copied the bed on the right, flipped it and used the copy as the second bed.  I copied the hats the same way.  It sure saves time!  Also used the custom paint feature to find the right pinks and yellows.

"Solar System"

by Brandon, Bryanna, and Jan

Inspired by Brandon, we three each took on a planet, Brandon tackling the grand-daddy of them all, the Sun.  I created Saturn with Brandon's instructions, and Bree drew the Earth. Where are the astronauts?

"She May be a Caterpillar Today....."

by  Jan

Playing around with the circle tool allowed me to create this cool caterpillar. No birds or nests, but I got that tree in again!

"Girl Swimming"

by Mackenzie and Gma Jan

Mackenzie and I enjoyed working together to create a soothing landscape of a lake and a grassy green area with, of course, a nest of birds.  The mother bird is in flight with a worm for her babies.  The girl swimming is a Mac creation.  Gotta love the pink punk hair!

"Bird Family"

by Bryanna and Gma Jan

Just your typical eggs in a nest, baby birds and a Mommy bird bathed in lots of color! Bree put most of this together herself, and I was very impressed with her birds. We used our latest trick of creating an object, copying it, flipping it and pasting it in as a second object.  We are learning how to become efficient in our fun!

"Brandon's Comet"

by Brandon

Brandon takes his drawings off in a different direction than we girls do.  He loves science and astronomy, so things not of this world are usually his art inspiration. Pretty cool, I think!

"It's a Jungle out There!"

by Bryanna and Jan

Bree and I started this picture and I wound up getting obsessively detailed. (My grandkids can probably tell you all about that,) I did most of the drawing and she did much of the painting.  Her favorite is the monkey and mine is the elephant. I really learned alot about using the different lines and spray can creating this one.

"Go Abe"

by Bryanna

Bryanna liked my "City" drawing and must have been learning about Abraham Lincoln that week, so she came up with this combination of both. Gooooo, Abe! 😂

"Fire!"

by Jan

I was still learning how to drop paint, develop perspective and add detail.  But alas, Everyone thinks this is a volcano.

"Circus"

by Kayla, Ashley, Jan, Mackenzie and Bryanna

This was a group event! A little something for each of us girls...little ones Kenzie and Bree, bigger girls Kayla and Ashley, and their Gma. 

"Mac Attack"

by Mac and Trent

Mackenzie got some help from her big brother, Trent, in setting up this explosion of circular color.  It looks like the circles are in motion and flipping vertically to me.

"The City"

by Jan

Must have been a boring evening when I created this abstract version of downtown Phoenix.  It is one of my favorites.

"Flowers and Butterflies"

by Bryanna and Gma Jan

A sunny day full of blooming flowers and butterflies! Bryanna and I sat together and took turns creating flowers and their fluttery friends.

"Arizona Desert"

by Jan

After a paint session with the kids one Saturday, I started playing around with the tools and learned how to create a picture with some depth.  These are a few of my earliest drawings. I did the daytime drawing and then played with different colors to create a night scene.

"Flowers"

by Bryanna

This is one of Bryanna's original creations.  She is very creative and loves color and design as demonstrated by the colorful vase on the left.

How Jan's Artsy Gallery Got Started

(Picture by Bryanna, aged 7 at time of creation)

I have always loved it when my grandkids visited me. We did the usual, fun stuff like go for walks, watch Movies, craft, color, paint and play games.

Over the years I have been the recipient of many wonderful creative gifts from my sweet grandkids in the form of drawings, colored pictures and paintings. Most of them have “I Love You Grandma” on the back, which fills me with nostalgia each time I read those words. 

Many years ago now, when one of my granddaughters was bored and we needed something new, we sat down on the computer and started creating a new kind of picture with Microsoft Paint. We made one picture using the free software on my computer, which was a very rudimentary picture with lots of colors. And that was how our computer art began!                       

After that first computer picture, painting with MS Paint became a favorite new thing for us to do together. I even painted some of my own, secretly, after the kids went home! It's been fun and we enjoyed being creative together.

Eventually, the kids grew up and began spending more time with their friends, which was about the same time my PC started becoming obsolete. (I now do everything on my iPad.) Even though we no longer sit down together to create our art on paper (which I added just recently to this blog) or paint with MS paint, I’m sure glad I have these memories of the creative time I spent with my grandkids when they were younger.  I sure miss those days!

This is our Art Gallery full of love and fun.