If you have been by our store lately, you may have noticed that things look a little different:

We’ve been getting into the Halloween spirit and decorating our store with spooky motifs. It shows how much you can accomplish with tempera paint, brown cardboard, charcoal, and pastels…

I’ve always thought it was a shame to wear an unaltered store-bought costume on Halloween… we have some items that could help you personalize your spooky look:

Above: Snazaroo face painting kits, Rigid Wrap (a type of plaster cloth, great for making masks), fabric paints and fabric markers for embellishing costumes and clothes. Regular acrylic paints, cardboards, and papers could also be useful. Have fun!

Above: a classic scene of artist and model (except the artist is an invisible ghost and the models are skeletons.) Pose taken (roughly) from Manet’s “Olympia.”

Nice kitty.

This past Sunday, we had an oil painting demo with Glenn Brill, Artist-in-residence with Gamblin paints.  He covered a great deal of information in a short demo, and left his audience eager to experiment with different oil painting techniques and mediums.

If you missed this event, take heart: we do intend to schedule more free art events like this in the future.

Yesterday was the first Friday of the month… You know what that means! Dozens of local galleries and alternative spaces schedule their openings to coincide so you can wander from gallery to gallery and take in all that art at once.  Most receptions start at 6 or 7pm and end at 9 or 10pm.  The official website for the event is:  http://www.oaklandartmurmur.com (it includes a map and links to various gallery websites)

Last night I was at the Art Murmur…  particular standouts included:

• Political woodblock prints made by Taring Padi, an Indonesian art collective whose name translates to “Fangs of Rice.” Rock Paper Scissors: http://www.rpscollective.com
• Linocuts and etchings by Art Hazelwood, also with a political theme, part of the Art of Democracy show at the Front Gallery: http://www.frontgalleryoakland.com
• Photographs, mostly details of plants and everyday objects (cracks in the sidewalk, found letters, bottles, etc) by Susan Hays.  NoneSuch Space: http://paragon-media.org/nonesuchspace

This is just a small and highly biased sample, but there is plenty out there worth seeking out.  If you missed the openings last night, don’t fret- if you visit galleries during their normal business hours you may miss the party atmosphere of opening night, but it will be quieter and it will be much easier to actually see the art.