It's suddenly October! The summer flew by with projects of all kinds.
My art group was given the opportunity to be in a gallery for the month of July. Who knew how much work that would be? Lots of planning and commitments to staff the gallery for a month. The good news was that we actually had time to be physically present with one another. (Normally we zoom once a week and critique each other's work). It was fun meeting and chatting with the people who came by the gallery and, by the end of the month, everyone had sold some of their artwork! What we learned was that none of us ever want to own/run a gallery - but appreciated our one month stint.
August disappeared and I was looking at September...getting inspired to enter something in the upcoming "Capturing Autumn" show. I began looking through some older paintings and found two that had never been shown before. One was a watercolor and ink painting that I had liked, but it was an 'almost'. Something wasn't quite right. Unfortunately I couldn't find the original on my computer. But, I tweaked it a bit and it now looks like this.
I showed it to my art group - it needed a title. There were a few suggestions and it ended up being "The Last Dance".
Next I found a pastel on my computer that would fit the autumn theme, but when I went looking for the painting, I couldn't find it anywhere! It was one of my granddaughters in a pumpkin patch. I asked my daughter if she had it and it turns out that my granddaughter has it in Houston!
So, I had an idea, maybe I could paint it again! Good idea, but ... Then it occurred to me that there was another way. I had the original image. I could print it out on pastel paper and paint it again! That was really fun and I could correct anything I didn't like. Most of my pastel paper is gray toned, but I found a light yellow sheet.
It turned out to be a lot more yellow than I expected! And the purple turned slightly blue. One of the wonderful things about pastels is that it is easily corrected (unlike watercolor!) I kept playing with it and finally stopped.
It's not as good as the original, but it was a fun process to try!
Fun news... while I have been writing this, I received an email from the chair person of the Capturing Autumn show telling me that I won an Honorable Mention in the show for "Last Dance"!
There are some beautiful paintings in the show. It will be hanging at the St. Michaels Library through the month of October. Stop by and take a look!
