Finished

“Praise Be” had been relegated to the back waters as I attempted to fulfill my professional and personal obligations over the month of November. So finally the day came when I began to clean up my studio in preparation for my new series in mixed media. A lot of things were in need of attention and completion. Even my main watercolour palette needed dusting. I suspect I had done a little woodwork, spreading the sawdust everywhere, sometime during the summer. I decided to put everything under cover as I am never sure what I will be doing next! And I turned my attention to the demo I had started for the Glenrose Hospital group who stopped to watch me paint. I looked at what I had accomplished and decided to change direction now that I had time to think! Instead of dark green I threw in some purple around the yellow flowers creating some lovely contrasts and movement around the piece. Using negative space around the splotches already created and a mixture of tonal values in both purple and green the garden suddenly came alive. Life is so good.

Concurrent Shows

I was going to write about this last week but I did not have the photos to post… I had forgotten my camera on both opening nights and I was fortunate to have my son-in-law available with his iPhone on the 6th. It is not often an artist gets to open concurrent shows in the same month. I was very blessed to have the openings on different evenings, more luck than good management! Both were fairly quiet events, always a delight to have time to chat and meet new people. The watercolour show is already down (it finished on the 18^th November) and the mixed media show closes on the 27^th November while I am in Montreal. I have wonderful daughters. They have agreed to pick up my mixed media paintings for me on the 28^th and , although they don’t know it yet, they will be dropping off the paintings at VASA for the member show opening the 3^rd December at 6pm. Life is so good.

Editing

Not too long ago I took in an excellent workshop on editing my work. This is something I do regularly with the drawing part of my repertoire. I did it again this morning as I selected the best sketches I had made on Saturday during the “Draw Til You Drop”. Unfortunately I could only stay for the first six hours and I enjoyed every minute of it as I ploughed through piles of paper. So how does one edit? With the drawing segment I do it in two stages. The first is a quick elimination of what I consider unacceptable quality. The second round occurs just before the “Naked Show” in June when I whittle what I have done over the year to a mere five drawings for submission. In effect it is the same procedure for paintings except one needs at least twenty paintings in a body of work in order to come out with the ten best. Instead of ripping up the canvas the unacceptable are turned to the wall and then the diamond is selected to determine if the remaining images measure up to this one gem. I have not done this yet. I had too many deadlines lately to allow myself this important step. I am working on a new series which will consist of about thirty paintings in all. Since I do not have a deadline the editing will be done in the peace and quiet of my studio sometime in the spring. Life is good.   

Final Touches

Adding code number for each painting

Checking for unwanteds under the glass

Securing the image and adding the wire

My husband is my biggest fan. He is also an analytical mathematician who loves working with numbers. When I announced I had finished my eleven paintings for CAVA he celebrated with me and thought I was done… Last Friday he asked me what framing all involves… Indeed. Watercolours need protection. The framing does not take long if one has all the ingredients at hand. I had checked some time ago and ordered ten new frames as I already had a few on my shelves. Most of them were silver and I wanted to show them in black. It looks far more professional if all the frames are the same style and the same colour in a show. The glass was abundant. There is a case on another shelf waiting to be emptied. I had forgotten about the matting until last week so I cut some scraps and had them belevel cut at my frame shop. Should be everything… Luckily I did have the other needed supplies such as acid free tape, window cleaner and bandaids. Glass is sharp on the edges and I usually get at least one nick. So everything is ready to deliver on Wednesday and I can turn my attention to other things… like mixed media! Life is good.

Just a reminder:
Two concurrent upcoming shows this week!