STEPHANIE KLEIN-DAVIS The Roanoke Times

Koiner Thomas and Courtney Cronin (right) of Roanoke look at artwork Sunday at the Westover Avenue studio and home of artist Mary Bullington.

Hundreds of people mapped Roanoke's art scene this past weekend, and a few took a piece home.

A spring favorite of many art lovers, Open Studios is a self-led excursion to see inside some of Roanoke's art studios, including several home studios. Twenty-six artists greeted visitors, up one from last year.

Touring Sunday afternoon, Beth Garst of Boones Mill stopped in the living room of the Greater Raleigh Court home of mixed-media artist and event organizer Mary Bullington.

She admired "The May Bride," a $700 painting.

"I like this," Garst told her friends. They did, too.

After several looks, they continued their tour. Though Garst wasn't buying on this occasion, she owns one Bullington already, she said.

Bullington was pleased to see Open Studios make it to 10 consecutive years in 2010.

"The art scene in Roanoke is healthy and getting healthier," she said.

One hub of activity was downtown's 100 block of West Campbell Avenue.

Val Padar and Dean Brandetsas of Roanoke found a towering red sculpture in the Wilson Hughes gallery. They said it would make a fine addition to Roanoke's public art collection.

"Market Square would be a good place," Brandetsas suggested.

As the red sculpture drew gazes, a green one left the building.

John Wilson, of the gallery, sold a green mannikin wearing a suit of computer circuit boards stitched together by wire. The piece, which goes by the name "Personal Firewall," was lying horizontally across the rear seat of the car belonging to its new owners, Russ and Kelly Ellis.

"I forgot to ask, is it a he or a she?" Russ Ellis asked.

"It's a metrosexual," Wilson said.

"Naturally," Kelly Ellis said.

Open Studios promises an intimate encounter -- face-to-face contact with artists who were happy to explain their techniques and visions.

Going hiking gets the juices flowing for abstract expressionist painter Diane Patton, who photographs the outdoors until she finds inspiration in, say, a rock pattern.

Patton, who sold multiple pieces during the weekend, is one of a small handful of Roanoke artists who makes a living off sales of their work. It's hard work, she said.

Brian Counihan, an oil painter and instructor at Community High School in Roanoke, left price tags off his work.

"Art has a different function rather than just sustaining the artist," he said. "My objective is to get people talking about art."

Though his work is for sale, he said that he most wants a reaction.

"Visually discordant, overcrowded, busy and fractured" are terms he used to describe his work, which features mixed, opposing metaphors. Some 500 people had dropped in to see him during the weekend, he said midafternoon Sunday.

John Wiercioch, a Roanoke artist who makes a living as a house painter, exhibited several works of his fine arts brush. He added texture to one of his dark, abstract paintings by applying dirt and leaves from his own garden.

When an abstract piece is well done, he said, "you just feel it. It's an experiential thing."