For the week of April 2, 2017, Northeast Ohio Rocks! honored Husband and Wife painting team, Ashley and Ryan Cook, as Artist of the Week.
Ashley shared with us her and Ryan have been painting rocks for about 5 months now. Ashley found a rock at work and had to show Ryan and their kids. The kids loved it, it was a triangular rock painted yellow with a green smiley face on it. Ashley rehid it almost immediately. Ashely said she wanted to make sure that whoever made it had a chance to have it found again. She said “it was such a rush re hiding”. That little yellow and green smiley face rock made her kids so happy it inspired her to create her own rocks, and then her husband started painting right along with her and they haven't stopped since! Ashley said, when she first started painting rocks she painted abstract rocks, a lot of words, a lot of hearts and since then she has grown to animals and other characters. Ryan, her husband paints the best Pokemon rocks. He also paints many different cartoon characters from the 80's and 90's between the both of them they have painted well over 500 rocks. In their travels of hiding rocks they have also found at least 20 rocks themselves! When Ryan was younger he used to draw a lot and Ashley used to help her mom craft jewelry and she loved to color. Now as adults they paint paint rocks with their children! Ashley said, her favorite thing about Northeast Ohio Rocks is that it is something that the entire family can participate it. It is so relaxing to sit there with your family and just paint and enjoy each others time instead of sitting in front of the television. We are so thrilled that we to paint rocks for people and bring them joy every day!
The Week of April 9, 2017
For the week of April 9, 2017, Northeast Ohio Rocks! honored Michelle Wahl as Artist of the Week.
Michelle said it has been a long time since she been creative, prior to starting to paint rocks. She discovered her love for painting by chance in a high school art class. She painted a little after high school, but motherhood and life called and her paints dried up. She also enjoyed sewing, but that has also taken a back burner over the years. Michelle likes to paint superhero rocks, rocks with positive messages, basketballs and silly rocks. She said that she has found these make people smile, and that's really what it's all about. Plus she really likes superheroes & basketball 😉 She is inspired to paint rocks to share smiles & kindness, brighten someone's day and inspire others to find their creativity. Her favorite thing about Northeast Ohio Rocks! is everything is that it encourages more family time, whether painting or searching. She loves that it's a movement about simple kindness that it shows the good in people. She has painted hundreds of rocks, she says probably over 120 lbs of rocks and counting. She has found three. Her daughter's have each found 2 rocks on their own. And even though they may be too cool to admit it, it's made them very happy and they couldn't wait to show her.
The Week of April 16, 2017
For the week of April 16, 2017, Northeast Ohio Rocks! honored Tracy Zimmerman as Artist of the Week.
Before
Tracy
started painting
rocks, photography and dabbling in acrylic painting were (and
still are) her
creative outlets. She
has enjoyed
photography for many, many years. She
started with a
35mm film camera back in high school. Since getting into digital
photography, she
has 80,000
photos on my computer.
Photography
is her
favorite way to be creative. She
started getting into painting when her
grand daughter was born, 3 years ago. She
did a lot of footprint/handprint art with her. She
has
always been a creative person. Always coloring and doing crafts as a
kid then moving on to photography.
She likes to
paint a large variety of things on my rocks from inspirational words
to puns to anything related to nature. She
is
constantly looking for new ideas and new techniques. Nature and
outdoorsy type things inspire her
the most. She
loves
camping, the beach, hiking, birds, flowers and it shows in her
work. Her
favorite thing about Northeast
Ohio Rocks!
is that it can be a tool used to teach and spread kindness and it can
inspire people to find their inner artist!
She has painted about
300 (give or take a few) rocks since October. Of
course, she has pictures of all of them. She has only found
8.
The Week of April 23, 2017
For the week of April 23, 2017, Northeast Ohio Rocks! honors Jessica Freeland as our Artist of the Week
Jessica discovered her "artsy" side in her mid 20's. It began with drawing or what she calls "doodles". Jessica said, during stressful times or a long day, it was the only thing that really made me feel calm. A few years later came her love for photography. She went from being a "cardboard" camera user, to obsessing over learning how to really work a camera, and all the tricks of post processing. Over the last 10 years her photography has included flowers and landscapes, wedding and portraits, abandoned factories and churches, and everything in between. When Norhteast Ohio Rocks! come across her news feed back in late August of 2016, she was instantly curious. She took one glance at the group and new she wanted to participate. She started with painting tress and hearts. Then, because she is a huge animal lover, she progressed into lots of different types of animals. She also loves doing dots. She says, something about dotting is extra relaxing. Painting rocks has the same effect as drawing, it's instant peace of mind. Being able to combine that with the idea to "pay it forward" is the best, and is probably her favorite thing about Northeast Ohio Rocks!. She said, she gets to paint and feel peaceful, but also I get to share a smile one rock at a time. Jessica went on to say, the rocks change peoples bad days to good, sometimes they give people hope when they really need it, they change lives, it is a good feeling to be a part of that. She is inspired and challenged to try new things whether that is a camping scene, an animal, a camera or painting dots. She doesn’t know how many rocks she has painted but she thinks it is around 250-300, give or take a few. She has yet to find a single one but knows her day will come.
The Week of April 30, 2017
For the week of April 2, 2017, Northeast Ohio Rocks! honored Sharon Lin as Artist of the Week.
One of Sharon’s daughters found the families first painted rock in November of 2016, she wanted to keep the rock but Sharon was finally able to convince her to re-hide it after a few days. In seeing how happy her daughter was in both finding & hiding the rock and realizing the valuable lessons her daughter had learned (share the kindness with others & learning to let go) Sharon decided to paint some rocks of their own in early December to bring the experience closer to home. Sharon said she has no formal training in arts & craft so initially she looked to the images posted in the group for inspiration. Recently she have been painting event driven rocks such as birthday & holiday theme or participating in rock painting events. Sharon became inspired to host her own group painting events to inspire others. She said, it isnt every day you get presented with an opportunity to change the world. Surprisingly painting the kindness rocks have given me just that opportunity: one rock at the time. Sharon initially loved looking through the group to find rocks they had painted but now they enjoy the creativity and the quality time she spends with her family and others. She is already planning her next painting event. Sharon doesn’t have an accurate account of all the rocks she has painted. She believes her and her family have painted hundreds of rocks. They have only found four.
