Happy Thursday Everyone!
It's been an amazing week this week! Monday was the usual day of tidying up, laundry, organizing my life and what I wanted to accomplish during the week. That all went by the wayside when I got online late on Monday and saw that Cate (@ShardArtist) had tweeted and left me a message about a Twitter Art Exhibition. That got my attention quickly and I read the post by David Sandum, an artist in Norway, who wanted to help raise funds in order to purchase books for the children's library. The children's library had their funding cut and were not going to be able to make any purchases unless another way was found to pay for the new books.
David came up with the idea of artists, who had Twitter accounts, donating a painting or piece of their art which would be part of 140 pieces of art (representing the 140 characters allowed in a tweet) to be sold from a display at the library. While David had hoped he could find 140 artists willing to help, he was overwhelmed by the response and at last report had well over 200 artists answer the call and more still jumping on the bandwagon as word of the exhibit spread through the many artists with Twitter accounts.
The exhibit will run for 2 months, starting December 01 with a gala evening. While David is taking care of coordinating the lists of artists sending in their work as well as the PR, the government is helping with supplying lighting and workers to help put the display together. Picture all these postcard sized pieces of art displayed against a white wall, accented with proper lighting. It's hard to imagine over 200 pieces of art, all different colours, styles from artists representing the globe. It's said that it takes a village to raise a child, well, here we have many artists from around the globe helping to put books in a library so that children will have what so many of us take for granted, a book to read. I'm a believer in children being encouraged to read at an early age and beginning what should be a life long enjoyment of books. That's an incredible journey for our young ones to embark on.
So, after reading Cate's message, I e-mailed David to advise him that I would love to participate. He responded almost immediately with the information as to where to send the artwork. Already, I was trying to imagine what I could come up with so quickly without having the time to take a run to my local art supply to get some inspiration. What more could I possibly need to inspire me? I always have extra art supplies on hand so it was just a case of coming up with an idea or two or three that could be put together quickly and sent on its way. I started off by cutting up some watercolour paper to the size I was comfortable working with. Postcard size is pretty much open to interpretation and I felt that 6" x 9" would work nicely and give me a sufficient work area to paint on. But what would I paint?
By Tuesday morning, I was still running ideas through my mind and decided that it was best to begin right at the beginning, think about colours. So, reaching for a vivid shade of green that I especially like, I splashed on a solid background. The vibrant background called for some equally vibrant colours in subject matter. I love the look of a bright cyan blue against a bright green and thought that maybe a blue bowl of fruit might just be the answer. Everyone knows that I'm a lover of texture and like to indulge in thick applications of paint in order to bump up the volume. Consequently, some rotund grapes, luscious red apples, amply accented with bright oranges, a plum and a fresh yellow banana would fill my blue bowl. But, my bowl looked a little plain and I just had to add some white daisies, one of my favourite flowers. The colours were crisp, clean and accomplished what I wanted. Adding a blue stemmed goblet to balance out the small canvas completed my little piece. A bit of shadow here, some silver highlights there and it was done. I felt a sense of let down. I needed my art fix to continue longer and so it did.
Later in the day on Tuesday, I thought a collage might be in order. So, printing off some Victorian ladies from my collection of clip art (courtesy Somerset Studio), I scoured through my bins finding a pendant, some ribbon, a rubber stamp of a small oak leaf, gold ink and a selection of coloured pencils in colours to set up my vignette in sepia tones and I was in collage heaven. The background colour was quickly painted in and left to dry while I set about cutting ribbon, colouring the clip art, searching wildly for my glue dot runner. If you haven't worked with one of these, you have to give them a try. They operate much like the white out dispensers that have a ribbon running inside to lay down the amount of coverage needed. With a dot glue dispenser, you get a finer application of glue which in turn makes for a neater, easily managed collage. One tip, it's wise to have one of the squares of "residue" remover to pull up any unnecessary glue. When gluing ribbon in place, it's very easy to overdo the application of glue and need to pull it up off of the canvas without damaging anything. Easily accomplished with the square of putty like substance. When the edge of it looks nasty, you just cut it off to reveal more clean area to work with. By the dawning of the first colours in the east, my collage was complete and left to dry. Another moment of let down.
Okay, I'm just not someone who can do just one piece for a submission, especially when it's for a good cause. So, by 8 a.m. I was busy trying to put together ideas for a third and final canvas. I sketched a black cat, but that didn't appeal to me. I looked at my supply of coloured candles and silk flowers to see if anything called out to me. Yes, I heard an audible meow. Meow? I tossed the cat idea in the garbage. Right, Molly was demanding some attention and while I was at it, maybe some breakfast. That taken care of and Molly having her tummy rubbed, belly filled and loving comments of "if you tap dance on the table one more time . . ." You know how that goes. In order to get more attention, said kitten decides to walk over recently painted, glued and embellished pieces and somehow manages to elude being captured and banished from the kitchen. I admit it, I bribed her with treats in order to gain just a few more hours to accomplish one last piece. My love of trees, devoid of leaves and showing their amazing wealth of tenacious branches reaching for the November sky went into overdrive and in a reasonable amount of time, an autumn walkway painted itself on a postcard sized canvas. I felt fulfilled, happy that I had managed to pull three ideas together in such a short amount of time.
Was the past 48 or so hours well spent? I think so. Mind you, I've been flying by the seat of my pants in order to get all this done, but that's what some journeys are all about, taking a leap of faith on your ability to make something happen quicker than you thought possible. My journey took me to a children's library in Norway. That's a nice little jaunt, didn't really cost me anything other than my time and the use of art supplies already in my possession. I've run to the postal sub station and sent my package off with fervent hopes of a successful fundraiser. Maybe you would like to follow David Sandum's blog for updates of this amazing artist's devotion not only to his art, but to his community. Take a look at http://ow.ly/3a4I3 to read about this art exhibit or take a stroll through David's art web site at http://www.davidsandum.com/ . I know that from what I've read from other artists who are participating in this fund raiser, this journey was taken by many, enjoyed by all who did participate and we're all looking forward to see what a difference you can make with a postcard sized piece of art.
Just as an update, I'm still reading A Course in Weight Loss-21 Spiritual Lessons for Surrendering Your Weight Forever by Marianne Williamson. It's a difficult read because there was so much emotion when I started going through the first lesson, that I have had to go back and reread the lesson a second, then a third time in order to process the information and put it in context with my own life. I highly recommend the book and urge you to read it and join Julie Anne Rhodes (@JulieAnneRhodes on Twitter) at her blog found at http://www.therovingstove.com/ where she and her readers are discussing the lessons and how they are affected by them and by the problems we all encounter when trying to lose weight. Julie Anne is a personal chef who has a world of experience in so many areas of life as a mother, advocate of healthy eating and has appeared on Food Network's Food Challenge where her recipe for Jewel's Turkey Burgers got rave reviews from the panel of judges and ultimately from viewers who have downloaded her recipe, one of the top ones to appear on Food Network's web site. Her blog is updated twice a week and sometimes more often when this wonderfully warm, talented chef has something to bring forward for discussion with her viewers.
Have a great weekend! Hope you find some time to be creative, but most of all to have some fun.
Sincerely, Rutheemac
P.S. Question of the day-Are you passionate about what you do? Tell us about it! Love to hear from others who are passionate about what they do. Do you have a passion for blogging, painting, gardening, cooking or something else? Share your passion with us and tell us about what you do that makes you lose all track of time or that you make a point of saving any extra pocket money to put towards your hobby, craft, or art. Click on comment at the end of this blog and I'll put up your post for all to read and maybe get some creative ideas from some of our readers.
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