My friend Gabrielle Reed with Celestial Stars Arts Academy puts on an annual ballet she created called The Christmas Angel through her Nova Ballet dance company.

I got to paint one of the sets for the 25th anniversary show! She sent me these pictures and gave me the wood cut out pieces. I scrounged some house paint from my garage coupled with a box of acrylic paints, and got to work.

There had been a cold front that week, so the costume studio I worked in was cold. It reminded me of the old days working in the concrete floor art studios at University where they funded business programs and fountains, but not heaters for the art students.

I was talking to one of my art friends from high school about this project and we were joking how our backs were hurting from bending over to paint. We both just happened to be working on installation projects! She had an “aha” moment where she said to “prop it up!” The second session I worked on it, I did prop it up against the wall. Thank you Elsa with No Bones Left!

Once painted it was mounted, and Gabrielle’s husband Gene put it together and added curtains.

When it was finished it was used for one of the dancing acts. One of the dance mom’s had put four of her daughters through the dance program and wanted to dance with her daughters in the show. Gabrielle put together an amazing idea of a puppet master giving a show to the toys during the Christmas festivities. It turned out great!

Our kids were in the performance as well! Here are some fun backstage scenes I took, and some proofs from So’ Creative Studio.