Painting at The Marshfield Fair

 

It's been a busy few weeks with The Marshfield Fair in full swing. I stepped up my volunteering just a bit this year. First we had a full weekend of checking-in all of the Country Arts entries (see the exhibitor handbook on the Fair website). While most of the entries come from local artists and craftspeople, the quilt block competition brings entries from far and wide. The amount of work involved in presenting the country arts display is amazing-from checking in the entries to judging, then displaying the 600 entries, then packing everything up after the fair.

I had an awesome time judging the cooking competitions with an old friend from high school. He understood that I got the big piece while we were judging chocolate bonbons because "I'm the girl..."

 

I met some wonderful new friends this year and I did THIS....



 

 

 

The Marshfield Fair Plein Air competition took place last Sunday. I wasn't originally going to enter, but was gently coerced (mmm hmmm) and I'm so glad I did it! ...AND I got a third place ribbon! There were 12 floral designers who competed first. They had 2 hours to use the flowers provided to create a gorgeous arrangement. Once they were done and judged (the man who won didn't even realize he was competing!) , the 12 painters were each assigned a display to paint. We had 4 hours to paint, right out in the open...with people watching... I was competing against another friend from high school (Class of 1985) so there was a bit of smack talk mixed in with support for all of the artists.

 

I was the only mixed media artist competing. The passers-by seemed to like all of my texture from collage under the paint, glass bead gel, and a tea bag. I should probably concentrate harder on editing myself... :)

Remember that Big Piece?

Well, I ended up starting another and slowly adding to the first. Once I added the birds I figured I was done, but I wasn't sure. I get stuck not wanting to cover up previous layers even though I KNOW it gets better as more layers get added.

Then I had a revelation! I wanted to play with negative space. I let that idea roll around in my head for a couple of weeks and then I just jumped in and did this!

I love it! And I thought it was done, but a week later I sanded down some of the red to expose more collage from underneath. I'm calling it "Two in The Bush".

As for the one with the arrow, it may or may not be done. They are both sitting on a bookshelf between the living room and kitchen so that they can speak to me when they are ready.

I'm temporarily calling this peice "Target Number".

What do you think???

Going Large

I've been having conversations with other art friends about working large. We all agree that we want to, but really haven't. So I took a tiny dip in the working larger pool when I took a 16X20 canvas down to Jan's. I wasn't worried about wrecking a big canvas since I bought it for $1.00 at the thrift store...gotta love that place.

I started by covering the whole thing with collage bits (mostly book pages) and then added a wash of quin gold, quin crimson and thalo green. I bought some latex house paint samples at Lowe's (on clearance of course) to try the bubble effect that I showed in the provious post. After it was home and on display for a couple of days I started adding more paint. This picture was after I added some extra green, yellow and turquoise.

At this point, I didn't glue down the flask. It actually still isn't glued down while I work through deciding what to do. It sat like this for a day before I got brave and added some more paint. Sorry the pictures are crappy. I couldn't get a good shot without the flash back.

Next I added the orange..loved it.

Finally this is pretty much as it sits looking for the next layers. At this point I figure I've overdone and need to dial back. But no, I'm adding more layers of collage before I go in with more paint. This is the hard part...When is it done? When is it overdone?