Creative Play

  Georgia’s Hands Shirley Keller, 2025 Sketching pencils on drawing paper Darcie, AWE teacher, presented a photo that we are guessing was taken from Georgia O’Keefe’s partner in black and white. Our assignment was to do a timed sketch.   This is my rendition. It was a very challenging assignment. The hands were staged in the most awkward positions. I barely was able to place the face and hands in some proximation that matched the photo in the time we were given. Over the next week I worked on the sketch, filling in details. I’d been using a sketch book. Recently, Darcie had shared what sketch books mean to artists, a place to quickly sketch ideas, practice doing parts of what would be whole pieces of art.   My sketch books all have a few started ideas, but then I’d not work in them again. So I took the one that looked like a book and every assignment Darcie gave us over the past couple of months I used this book as the source.   My inexperience was very evident when ...

  Kaweah River Shirley Keller, 2024 Acrylic This scene is from the Dinely Bridge looking West. Over the last 22 years that we’ve lived here I must have stood at the bridge staring at the river flowing down from the Sierra’s hundred’s of times. Joining the AWE classes eventually inspired me to attempt to paint this scene. And since I love dots painted with toothpicks I decided to take a chance and do the river in dots. To my amazement it worked. And this piece captures the love I feel for this place. Over the years I’ve observed from that spot on the bridge owls and hawks built nests in the highest tree, lay eggs, hatch and raise their babes. I’ve stood there with many walking friends as we expressed our luck at living here in Three Rivers. And it was across the street on this very spot that I met Mr. Burns. For the next seven years he shared his knowledge of the natural life that surrounds us every day.   Puerto Rico Shirley Keller, 2025 Acrylic My friend Nora took anothe...

 Barbara Shirley Keller, 2025 Acrylics - Dots with toothpicks Delia and her husband Erin have no children. When they got together Erin had the dog named Barbara. He’d had Barbara for years by then. Delia fell in love with Barbara. Five years past since they first joined as a couple.  My husband Bruce is Delia’s adopted father. He asked her not long ago if she had any plans to have children. Erin is in his mid-forties. Delia is mid-thirties. Her answer to Bruce was, “Probably not have kids, but I am seriously considering adoption.” Bruce teared up. To him that meant Delia feels he, and her adoptive mother, must have done a really good job raising her and she did not seem to feel the loss many adoptive people feel.  When Bruce told me about that conversation I had to laugh. “Barbara is their child,” I joked. I’d been having that thought for the last couple of years. Barbara is with them every where they go except when they travel to Bali to see Erin’s father and his family,...

  Shirley Keller, Artist and Author, December 2024 Spiritual Awareness Center, Visalia, California Art and Book Show All books available:  Amazon.com, Spirit Hill Meditation and Art Studio, Three Rivers, CA and Barnes and Nobel Bookstore, Visalia, CA But What About The Children? Diversity is Life   A Memoir 2019 Cover: Delia Keller The Donkey Song - Novella of Fiction A Romance based on a true story 2021 Cover: Delia Keller About Connections Short Stories 2024 Cover: Delia Keller ORIGINAL COVER ART                                                 But What About The Children? Diversity is Life                                                             M...