The Painting Wizard

The Sistine Chapel in London, Canada

Melanie Stimmell has been invited to be the artistic director for a monumental project in London, Canada this August. In her 4th year with the festival, she will lead a team of 9 artist in recreating the central panels of the Sistine Chapel Ceiling on the asphalt for the Expressions in Chalk Street Painting Festival . The street painting will take up over 1600 square feet at 18 x 92 feet, and will illustrate the most recognizable scenes from Michelangelo's Vatican masterpiece. The original was begun in 1508 and was not complete until 1512. London's team of 9, lead by Melanie, will complete it in 6 days, with the finish ready for viewing on Sunday, August 2nd. The team will include 2 other international artists from California, Genna Panzarella & Lysa Ashley, and 6 local London artists. 

Melanie has also created a fine art piece for the event to Auction off. The proceeds will go to supporting the arts in downtown London.

StreetPainting.us

With the help of e-remmie.com I have created a new website called StreetPainting.us. My original website, www.MelanieStimmell.com, is still up and running so you may still visit that address as well. MelanieStimmell.com is a bit more of my personality and StreetPainting.us is more corporate. So there is something for everyone. There is a new section of the StreetPainting.us website called the Academy which I am very excited about. Through the street painting Academy you can book street painting and pastel workshops for children, adults, or your next event. You can also purchase my Photoshop tutorial DVD titled
"Painting a Fantasy Portrait in Photoshop" which was created in conjunction with Photoshop Top Secret last year. Take a look!

Painting a Fantasy Portrait in Photoshop

Offered for the very first time, this special DVD was the 'Secret' Bonus DVD with the purchase of the very popular PhotoshopTopSecret! Now you can purchase the DVD all by itself through my websites.

www.MelanieStimmell.com & www.StreetPainting.us

This limited time special offers you step by step screen captured tutorials so you can work along side me to create a Fantasy Portrait in Photoshop. All the files you need are included on this disk and you will learn all my secrets for creating a life-like portrait in photoshop, on canvas, or on the asphalt.

La Piazza dell'Arte

June 7th -8th I will be in Denver, Colorado for their La Piazza dell'Arte festival. This is my 6th year as a featured artist and I will be recreating 'The Dust Seeker' from my new Avant Garde series.

Street Painting in Nice

At the I Madonnari Festival in Santa Barbara, I had a great time recreating one of my new fine art paintings titled, Spellbound. I'm really excited to be painting another original work for a new street painting festival in France.

I will have the special honor of traveling to Nice this June to be a featured artist for their first street painting festival titled Les Craies d'Azur. We believe the name, which loosely translates to Chalks of Blue is descriptive of the events location which will overlook the Mediterranean. While there have been many street paintings done in France since the tradition's origins in the 1500's, this is their first official street painting event.

Portraits

The recent months have provided some downtime from street painting and teaching so I decided to do a self portrait. The last one I did was in college, many years ago. I figured it was time. I painted it in soft pastel on paper. I wanted something whimsical and fun but not altogether me. It's titled "Self Portrait Circa 1700".
For more on the process of pastel portraits visit the How2PastelPaint link.

LA Video Game Expo

I was commissioned to design a large street painting for the Los Angeles Video Game Expo titled E for All. It was a huge event which deserved a huge painting. My 15 x 15 foot piece, sponsored by G4, was done on canvas in the lobby of the Convention Center over the course of the 4 day event. The image is based on a fountain in Vienna, Austria that I photographed a few years ago. The female figure at the top of the fountain seemed to have a powerful and victorious presence...much like a digital goddess ;) People seemed to really enjoy the work and really had a good chuckle when they would notice the game controller in the hand of the prevailing goddess.

Poster Redo

Well, as it turns out, my Bella Via image will not be used for the posters in Utrecht, Holland.  Instead, they will be using a pic of me actually painting in Holland.  That's me on the left working on a painting that Julie Kirk and I did a few years back to promote a Utrecht street painting festival.

My Bed is a Boat!

Availale for purchase: 16 x 20" Giclee prints of "My Bed is a Boat"
Each print is signed, numbered from an edition of 100.

Visit http://melaniestimmell.com/store.html

I will also be painting this image as a featured piece at this year's
La Piazza Dell Arte festival in Denver, Colorado.

Street Painting in The Netherlands

My Bella Via image will be featured on the poster for the Internationaal Streetpaintfestival Domplein Utrecht in The Netherlands. That's me, in the center panel, with the image I painted in Valencia, CA several years back.
This poster will hang throughout the city of Utrecht for the event which will be held July 6-9th in honor of the cities churches and cathedrals. A team of 12 artists- 3 from the US, including myself and Julie Kirk, 3 from Holland, 3 from Germany, and 3 from Italy, will create Holland's largest street painting to date.
The painting will consists of 12 9x9 foot reproductions from Utrecht Caravaggisti that hang in the cities museums. The 12 panels will be connected by a cityscape that will stretch the full 100 or so feet of the mural.