Home Page design for an art-themed website

http://www.oil-painting-history.com

I am an art teacher at a local art school in Tampa, Florida.

I want to make art history a fun subject that appeals to today's always-online, always-connected students. My area of specialization is oil painting.
I want a website where I can
* post learning materials,
* publish regular blog posts about happenings in the art world,
* get my students to connect with my Facebook page and Twitter account.
* sell art instruction DVDs
* stay in touch with a group of past and present students through an email newsletter.

I have put in some work to get a wireframe ready for the Home Page. I am now looking for design ideas to realize the wireframe.

Final output from you
A .PSD file containing your design idea for the Home Page of the website.
The .PSD file will be converted to XHTML/CSS so it needs to be fully layered, where the text is editable and the images have backgrounds, foregrounds, overlays, etc.

Criteria for Winning Entry
1. Should enter a design within first 2 days of the launch of the contest, even if it is not the most "perfect".
2. Willing to take feedback from me to iteratively improve on design.
3. Fulfills all the requirements laid down and then adds own "zing" to take my idea to another level. There are no constraints on what the "zing" could be. :-)
4. Eye candy.

* past and present students (age group 18 - 25)
* self-learners looking to shop art instruction DVDs (age group 25 - 75)

The Wireframe
The wireframe and detailed explanation of its elements are attached here as wireframe-with-explanation.pdf and wireframe-watch-DVDs-section.png.

The wireframe is only a starting point. The areas shown as blue boxes on the wireframe should NOT be translated literally on the design as separate boxes. The areas only serve to demarcate where certain information is supposed to go. Also, disregard all colors and fonts used in the wireframe. Instead, use your artistic discretion to decide whether the information in that area needs a separate box, or just changes in foreground color, background color, font color, font type, font size, or any combination of these.

Theme
One look at the home page should immediately convey that this is a website that talks about oil painting. Choose visual elements accordingly (font, colors, images etc).

Web 2.0 UI elements
The UI should be right up there with any "Web 2.0" website:
* Clean and visually elegant
* Central layout with fixed 960px width with transparent background
* Boxes have rounded corners and gradient background
* Other areas have well contrasting, flat colors or tone.
* Buttons have rounded corners and glassy shine. Text is white. There should be a little arrow at the right hand end of the button like ">".
* Icons are shiny, attractive and convey the meaning well. Also with rounded corners.