The EAA Sketchers June challenge is all about a summertime picnic and food!  Paint your favorite picnic food using a medium of your choice.  Could your favorite be… picnic basket of goodies, strawberry pie, grandma’s famous pasta, or a favorite summer drink?  There were 10 artworks submitted and half of them are abstracts.  Can you guess what picnic food is represented in those abstracts without peeking at the write up?

Char Dayton - Char submitted two. The first, an oil pastel done on black poster board, titled "My Favorite Summer Fruits & Veggies". Her objective was to do a design consisting of shapes and ‘wild’ colors, like a purple pickle! The second is a photographic composition created by her granddaughter, Nora. It’s Nora’s idea of a picnic; they made the mini picnic food with Fimo clay.

Suzette Cohen - "Just a Bunch of Grapes" is the title of her collage. The 1-inch purple and blue circles were punched out of papers that Suzette had previously made. When artistically arranged, the light and dark circles turned into an interesting grouping of grapes.

Vicki Ratliff -Vicki submitted this abstract titled "Mulberries". It looks like she hand stitched paper pieces to form this interesting collage. She was unable to attend the zoom.

Susan Herrle - Using Paper app on the iPad, Sue created a digital, realistic representation of her favorite summertime sandwich… a Veggie Pressed Sandwich. It contains basil pesto, fresh mozzarella cheese, roasted red peppers, roasted zucchini and eggplant slices, olive tapenade, layered on focaccia bread and drizzled with olive oil, then tightly wrapped in Saran pressed down with a heavy weight overnight….sliced and enjoyed!

Cynthia Beacham - "Pineapples for the Win" is the title of this colorful acrylic abstract. She was unable to attend the zoom.

Kirk Ramsey - "Always eat dessert first, you never know what the future might hold..."  In this case, Mary Yoders banana cream pie in Middlefield, OH. Mixed media: Watercolor, technical pen, and pasted portions of the actual Mary Yoder's menu, complete with a gravy stain in the upper right corner - can't be more authentic than that! The waitresses called me the Banana Cream Pie Guy and would rush a piece over to me as soon as we sat down at the table.

Sandra Johnson - Sandy’s pictures of strawberries is actually a black & white photo that she colored using sharpie markers. She had seen this technique demoed at a Hillcrest Art Group meeting. When she turned the photo over, to her surprise, the back looked more artistic and abstract than the front. A happy mistake and a piece of unique art was born! We all loved it!

Rozenia Cunningham - Rozenia created this abstract collage, titled "Watermelon Drink", at 5:00a.m. on Sunday morning, then went back to bed! She used recycled masking and clear tape which became the glass, along with watercolor paint and white tempura on watercolor paper.

Cheri Gardiner - Cheri couldn’t be with us, but she did the challenge and shared this watercolor….an iconic summer scene with watermelon, picnic basket and red checkered tablecloth. Nicely done!