The Gentle Shove of a Deadline

Nothing like flipping over the calendar only to discover one is less than 4 weeks away from a deadline!  Usually I love having specific points of reference for project finishes, it helps to focus on keeping the main thing the main thing!  But yikes....so here we go with a need for speed and a critical look at several unfinished pieces.  Photographing them really helps to see them better for corrections.

Duneside, 11 x 14, underpainting

This little scene is from an area in Ponte Vedra, FL, a cozy little spot tucked in the sand dunes of the ocean...a lovely place to sit and dream.  Of course this is the first of many layers of paint and colors but I do want to stick to a predominately purple-ish tone and feel.  It was the gentle time of day when the sun was sinking and the gold light made everything so soft.  Lots more work to do.

UnNamed, 24 x 18, oil

work in progress

This piece is crying out for a name...suggestions?  There is more work to be done on the tree and its nest of roots as well as raising the sandbar in front of the water.  Roots like this are always so fascinating to me...and always so difficult to paint.  But I am anxious to get back to this one...I feel I have visited this scene many, many times.....

Heron, 30 x 24, oil

work in progress

I found this scene in the Everglades, FL.  There is still much to do on this very large piece but I like the vagueness of it in its present state.  It will be interesting to see where it goes....all this green calls for a little bit of pink dont you think?  and more blue?  hmmmm.  It could use a fancy name as well.

All of these pieces need to be finished and framed before the ArtWorks of Eau Gallie show on November 22.  The festival has added a patrons night before the opening which means that instead of working until the very last minute, putting up your tent and heading home to crash, we will be on site, gracious and smiling at 6 pm to greet the fine folks who make the show possible.

More on the show and my progress over the next week or two.  Meanwhile, if you are near Brevard County, FL mark the dates and come see us.  And cross your fingers I can get these done and dried before I hit the framers!

Colorfully yours,

Cindy

It's a Chemical Reaction

Like other artists I am still painting and the show is this Saturday!  I swore I wouldn't be doing that, I made myself a promise.  But a masterpiece always lurks around the corner and this deadline is no different.  So, how do you get a wet painting signed, framed, transported and hung?  Better yet, how can you talk it into drying more quickly?

If it is an oil painting you are plumb out of luck.  Unlike watercolor and acrylic paint which dry as the water in them evaporate (and thus can be encouraged with a blow drier or a fan or some sunlight), oil paints have a siccative quality.  That's a fancy way of saying that they absorb oxygen from the air which then reacts with the ingredients to harden.  In other words, it is a chemical reaction.

Phooey.

my very unkept palette of mixed oil paint

in the silver cannister is turpenoid, a turpetine substitute for cleaning brushes

Oil paints do not have water in them.  The oxygen gets absorbed through the paint's surface which means that the top surface dries first.  If I leave a blob of paint on the palette for several days I come back to a tough skin across the top; if I break through that skin the inside is still fairly soft and pliable.  This dying process never really stops and for textured work (guilty) it can take months to complete.  In fact, artists are well advised not to varnish a painting until at least 6 months after completion to be certain it is completely dry...otherwise cracks will appear from the varnish drying on top of wet paint.

while I know the fan won't speed the drying it makes me feel better,

like I am helping in some way

And to make matters even more chemically complicated, certain colors (pigments) take longer to oxidize than others, and not all "whites" or all "reds" fall into the same (slow, longer, longest) categories.  I went online looking for some magic words to speed the drying time and learned that some folks put the piece under a light bulb or in the warm sun.  I'm not sure I understood the reasoning but I do know that setting up a fan makes me feel better.

And there is another funny chemical application.  Oil paints are not cheap; some small tubes cost $29.95 and up.  So when extra paint is on your palette and you are closing up shop it really hurts to trash that cash.  I have covered mine before in a tupperware-like container and placed it in the freezer.  Works fine to protect the paint for about a week or so.  But I read where others submerged their palette under water.  Now that makes chemical sense but sure sounds like a mess to me.  

Anyway, chemistry was never my long suit although I was told by my college professor (as he threatened to fail me) that I would need it someday in my "real life."  I really hate to admit he might have been correct.

If you are local I hope you'll stop by the ArtWorks Festival in downtown Eau Gallie.  See you there.

Colorful History

The Umbrella Pines

oil    8" x 24"

Painting in Rome and Venice was an experience I will always recall fondly.  Plein Air work is a totally different sport than studio work.  Here are some of the pieces I have worked on since I returned.  Come visit me and most of this work next weekend, Nov. 23 and 24, 10 - 5 pm, at ArtWorks Fine Arts Festival on Highland Avenue in Eau Gallie. Click here for a map and directions.  

 Ponte di Rialto, Venice

oil    8" x 10"

Roman Colosseum 2013 AD

oil     9" x 10"

 The Appian Way

oil    5" x 7"

St. Peters Basilica from Villa Borghese

6" x 12"

See you at the art festival!  My space is #114 on the western side of Highland Avenue.  Cindy

Nuts & Bolts...and paint!

I've been going to street festival art shows since I was about 6 years old.  Everything about them thrills me: the art of course but also the food, the smells, the funny people, the street performers, the parks and the ability to just sit and enjoy the scene around you.  I never really gave much thought as to how the whole thing comes together....until.  Yep, I spent about 4-5 years on the organization committee of ArtWorks of Eau Gallie and got a real birds eye view of all the ins and outs of production.  (Did you know that if beer is served the city ups the ante on the number of port-a-lets that have to be rented?)

Next weekend I will be looking at a show from yet another view: inside the booth of an artist.  Whew!  Another full and unexpected education (what do you mean there is no beer??) that begins many, many weeks before the curtain actually rises on that wonderful people-filled weekend.  So let me share a few of my preparations:

Got to have a "booth" and most shows require a photo of said booth long before you have decided what to put in it or how to hang it.  This was a trial run in the back yard sans "walls."

As the tallest member of our family had to stoop to enter the tent we decided to combine required weights with a method of lifting the entire piece.  We'll let you know if it works but here I am jerry-rigging cans and cement and screws and ingenuity...

A friend of mine constructed walls out of lattice work and here is my husband rigging up sandfilled weights to attach to the walls so they don't swing and so the tent does not blow away with a gust of wind off the river.  Again, a prototype soon to be tested...

Oh yeah, art work.  Painted, framed, signed, photographed and priced (hopefully) to sell.  Now that it is protected with wrapping it must fit into the car and be hauled with everything else.  I'm sure I will look like the Clampitts pulling into town.

This festival requires a continuing demonstration to teach folks about your art and techniques.  Yeah, while I stand on my head and sing the National Anthem?  Right...I'll try.  This will be a work in progress and visitors may participate.

So what will I forget?  The credit card processer, labels, business cards, water, the paint for demo, clothes for cold, clothes for heat, a chair, comfy shoes.....that's it: the nuts and bolts of street festivals.