Friday, April 20, 2012

NUTS! x 3


The reception at O'Reilly Insurance was fantastic! After counting the wine glasses at the end of the night, it was estimated that about 100 people came! It was terrific to see friends and family and I really enjoyed meeting so many new and interesting people. One of the reasons this post is called "NUTS!" is that somehow I forgot to put out my clipboard for people to sign up their contact info. if they want to know about future shows and events. Even during conversations when I was telling people about the upcoming show with my Dad it never dawned on me to ask them for their address so I could send an invitation. NUTS!

A second reason this post is called "NUTS!" is that I was changing settings on my camera the other day and now, somehow, the date stamp is on... and the date is wrong! I painted this today and took the picture today, but that is not today's date! Instruction book where are you?

The third and final reason to say "NUTS!" is that I decided to use cradled panels for the next couple of paintings because I love the natural colour of the wood- it is basically Naples Yellow. I thought it would be pretty showing through here and there once the painting is finished, so I used GAC-100 (Golden) to seal the surface. Once I got the location of the trees, logs and grass sketched in I began with painting the sky, which I wanted to be a pale yellow (you can see the start in the top left corner). It soon became apparent to me that I should have, in fact, been painting on a coloured ground because I was not going to be getting any zings of energy from pale yellow wood under a pale yellow sky. NUTS! The problem was that I sketched in the trees with oil paint and I liked how they worked so I didn't want to wipe it off then glaze the surface with oil paint and then have to wait for that to thoroughly dry before I could continue. My solution was to do a glaze of acrylic in all the non-oil areas-in other words where the wood colour was showing. I took this photo when I was part-way done. What a pain! But I think it will work in the end.

I hope you have a NUTS!-free weekend!

7 comments:

monika@mysweetprairie.ca said...

Oh NUTS!

Well... 100 people is fabulous. I got three last time. lol But I'm not good at inviting people and I lack family here.

Did you have your cards? People will come see the announcements on your blog. No worries.

As for the painting... no advice : )

~Monika

Nicki said...

I hope you are right, Monika, that they will look at my blog/FB page. Live and learn!

I'm heading to the studio soon to have a look at the painting. Fingers crossed I can work with it.

Nicki

Barbara Muir said...

Chill girl. The painting looks great. The show went well. We are all learning all the time, and just like children we perform better when we don't kick ourselves around the block for small things. You are awesome. Believe it.

XO Barbara

Nicki said...

Barbara, thanks for single-handedly being such a great cheering section for me!

XO Nicki

-Don said...

Nicki, you're NUTS! But, that's beside the point...

Congratulations on a successful show. If not having a book out was the worst thing that happened, then it's all good.

Now, take a deep cleansing breath and then click on the menu option of your camera. You should be able to scroll down to the Date Stamp option and turn it off. As you scroll thru the items it should give you a little description of each. Keep looking until you land on the right one. I've never used the date stamp on mine and had no idea where it was, but before I posted this comment I went thru and found it just to make sure it was as easy as I'd hoped...

As for your painting. You are experiencing one of the thrills of experimentation - the realization that success will be a challenge, but it's there to be had pending some adjustments of your original plan.

Have fun, Nutso!

-Don

Nicki said...

Hi Don,

Deep cleansing breath - check

Camera reset - check

Experimentation - check

.... still nuts? Check!

:o) have a great day!

Nicki

Marla said...

I love that you tracked attendance by counting wine glasses! Glad your shows have been doing so well.