Sun and Shade
pastel, 10x8 in
Busy, busy month. Rainy, rainy month. Busy, busy me. Getting paintings framed for show at a new (to me) gallery, putting in applications for other group shows and scoping out more galleries (hoping to place in several), jumping on the rare sunny days to work long hours in my garden to try to catch up (not there yet). Oh, yeah, and painting something every day, even if it is just a watercolor sketch or two in one of my notebooks. Forget housework-- no time.
The show is open and the opening went great. Finally took a breather, and gave up a rare sunny day to go paint and run errands, even though my vegie garden was calling out to be planted.
The Chaffee Art Center (in Rutland, VT) is sponsoring an open "Painting on the Porch" for artists every Wednesday. So I packed up some of my pastels, my small easel, and some paper. There we were, a beautiful day on the portico of an historic old house, surrounded by interesting subjects for doing plein air-- and every one else waas painting from photographs, sitting and chatting, with their backs to the scenery!
I poked around a bit, and set my easel up in a corner of the porch by the side entrance where I had a view of the street trees with a nice strong light and shadow thing going on. An extra benefit was that I was away from the traffic noise (the center is right on the main drag through town).
Though I usually work quickly in pastels, I found it hard to get as much done as I usually would in the time I had. I discovered right away that I had a problem with my materials: the weather has been so damp and humid that I had a problem with the pastel building up too fast, even with the light touch I tend to use. So this is definitely unfinished, and probably not something I'll do anything with.
The other artists were understandably curious about the setup I used and the way I set up the underpainting, and kept creeping back to ask questions. And of course, visitors would stop by to peek over my shoulder. This is normal for this kind of situation, though, and I enjoyed it.
I already have my spot picked out for next time, next to a small garden with a totem sculpture in back. And next time I'll bring my new acrylics to try out. I got them specifically to do off-the-beaten track plein air, because they dry quickly and are easier to carry out. But the Painting on the Porch events will be good practice too, because the short time will force me to work more quickly than I do with oils.
PS: The little ants never came back. Well, they checked the mailbox out, but didn't move in. So apparently the oil of rose geranium worked. But then they discovered my favorite spot in the living room to drink coffee and eat snacks. It was my fault. I let the first one escape. Now I eat my snacks in the kitchen. I don't know why they have never found my kitchen. It would be ant heaven.
