Im teaching a workshop on Mixing Custom Color Palettes at Handcrafted Studio School soon.  One of my favorite things about workshops is preparing the kits for students. I love to set a nice table with art supplies as place settings take-aways for party favors.

Here's a little behind the scenes from my drawing and painting classes at CreativeLive.  

I met Lara McCormick who was Head of Design Education at CreativeLive and we talked about art and old times at Berkeley High School. She assigned me a content producer, Erin Persley. It was Erin's job to wring as much information about drawing and painting out of me as I could possibly say in our eight-hour day of shooting. We created a show flow, materials list, course graphics, and bonus material. I also made some backdrops to decorate my set.

I couldn't get through my introduction during the practice sessions but to my relief, when I had the live audience in front of me, I did it without messing up. My host Robert Mahar was such a big help and calmed my nerves.

I started off tracing around objects.

Later we traced pictures off an iPad and refined line quality.

In the color class I showed how to work with gouache. 

Then I printed some images on products with Society6 and displayed others.

It was the most intense day ever but I would do it again in a heartbeat.

 Holiday preparation begins today. My new Tiny Art can be hung in a gallery grouping, on a tree, or used as a gift topper. I had a few samples at Renegade SF and they got a lot of attention.

I'm also working on a series of Menu Posters. Here's the first one – more to come

It's present season and my gift wrapping cart is ready to go.  I'm taking it out to craft fairs and stores. Here it is all folded up and ready to shove in the back of my car.

Unfold everything and it fluffs up quite a bit. This is the cart decorated for christmas.  It will get a new look for Valentine's day.  I'm peddling gift tags and craft kits to make locks and keys tags with golden chain.

Here it is at the Etsy craft fair at pier 35 in San Francisco.

Most of the gift tags are available in my Etsy shop.  This little reindeer book is a free download and DIY instructions from my Tiny Paintings Project.  Just click on the Tab in the upper right - it's #45.

If you give a gift to someone who will be walking around in the woods, hang a bear bell (or two) on it.

Bigfoot was the most popular monster at the show, even though he probably doesn't think of himself as popular.

I decorated a small tree with the jewels.  And the tree tags were popular gifts for brothers.

Bakery boxes with wash tape edges and sweet treats.

If you want to make your own version of the locks and keys the free download is week #21

The bells and whistles are also a free download from the Tiny Paintings Project. Look for #46.

I like to hang an evil eye here and there for protection.  This one is in the middle of a prize ribbon.  Stay tuned for an announcement about my upcoming instructional video on how to make fancy ribbons with Castle in the Air.

If you don't have a chimney, leave a key out for santa... and the tooth fairy and the Easter bunny too.

I painted a wooden spoon for this show

The opening is February 21st from 6pm-8pm at Paxton Gate Kids, 766 Valencia St. San Francisco.  More info on Courtney Cerruti's website.  #3636project  @ccerruti

And I went to a Show and Tell with Uppercase magazine at 3 Fish Studios. Cool place, cool people. Janine has been blogging about the event. Here's me.

I'm teaching "Old-school Illustration" 9/23/2013.

More info. here http://makeshiftsociety.com/event/old-school-illustration-by-cleo-papanikolas-923-630-900/

Coming next week: a a project using the Badges for Mom inc. art in the Artwork Downloads column to the right.

I'll be teaching book arts classes about kitchen notebooks, chef''s logs, and culinary travelogs at two locations: Sunday August 12th - Castle in the Air, Berkeley CA Three evenings starting Monday October 23rd - The San Francisco Center for the Book, San Francisco CA