Well, here I am in my house on a Saturday night, thanks to the rain and thunderstorms. Humph! I am fairly certain that no one will be down at the pool even if the cabana is open so I will fend for myself tonight. It won't kill me but I am certainly disappointed in missing out. Absolutely NO pool time today at all makes for a Kranky Kim! But, Kim should absolutely not be kranky because of the awesome morning and early afternoon she had!
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Yesterday I was at Great Hang Ups and saw several of my old buddies from the Art Guild. Melissa is a member of The Club and do get to see her fairly regularly over there, especially in the summer time when she brings her son swimming. The other friend is Kris, whose booth I helped with last summer at the St. Margaret's Fair, the same day I had Lynx put down. She teaches art at Grace, just down the street. She also did the fabulous piece that Linda gave to Tommy for his birthday or Christmas, that looks like a playing card, in keeping with Tommy's passion for Texas Hold 'Em.
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Kris has a number of pieces hanging on the walls at Great Hang Ups, including some particularly 'fun' ones painted in a style or method she had offered to show me some time ago. I asked her if she still does that method or if she had moved on to other things---she offered to show me how to do it. All I had to do was find my watercolor paper...hmmmm. I did manage to locate two pieces this a.m. but took only one along with me when I met her in the classroom. It took some looking but I eventually found her in one of the portables located on their school property. Tree surgeons were hard at it as was the lawn service so we were not lonely. Even the cleaning lady came in to vacuum and empty the trash while we were there.
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Kris showed me the method of painting, practicing first on one she had been working on to demonstrate how it's done. We used water color paints in spray bottles, keeping the warms and the cool color separated in order to avoid 'mudding the waters' as it were. So, that much I learned today, how to not make brown unless one wants brown! Other tools are used in this method such as rubbing alcohol, regular water, and even soap water sprayed on the wet paint to make it run in different directions and streaks. Very cool! My favorite colors were the cool ones, the 'water' hues, imagine that, and highlighted with yellows and orange. Half the page we did in one step, then turned it end for end, and painted from the bottom up, again, very cool!
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While the right-hand side of the 24" x 36" piece dried, we began another separate painting on the left-hand side of the page. Our intent was to blend the two sides eventually, but it ended up being entirely different. This was fine, as our dear friend, Dee, would certainly get several areas or 'vignettes' out of this piece of paper to frame. Kris mentioned that Dee and she seldom agree on these type of things, such as whether a piece should be mounted vertically or horizontally, and Dee is always correct. Or whether a 'vignette' jumps out or not, what Kris would discard or disregard, Dee would make into a treasure!
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I told Kris I would be able to go see Dee on Tuesday since the shop was closed on Mondays, and talk with her about what was keep-able from this newly created piece. Kris said, "Or, you could go today!" My original plan was to paint in the morning and swim in the afternoon but decided to go with Kris to Great Hang Ups since she was going to have hers framed as well. Off we go, then!
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Since I parked somewhere other than where Kris parked, I needed more walking time so headed out before she did, stopping at McDonald's to get us each a drink for at the shop. Kris was correct, Dee really has the best eye for this type of thing and she nicely carved up my sheet into several vignettes and did the same for Kris. I told Dee I would likely 'share' my framed pieces either at Christmas or special occasions or something but one particular area she wants me to keep, because it was my 'signature'----it ended up looking like a sunrise. All by accident, of course, since there is little control on my part of the spray! I imagine with some practice, I could learn to control it, manage it and maneuver the paint, but for today, I got into trouble with Art!
