Saturday, October 31, 2009

Painting under pressure


For the last few years a local framer Don Whyte has run an "off-cut show". He makes small canvases with the offcuts of wood and canvas that have accumulated through the year, he distributes them to local artists, who make a painting and then donate a portion (or all) of the sale price. The opening is a buying frenzy, very exciting! If you take a look at his website there is video footage from one of the earlier years.



This is my third year of contributing work, it's been such an empowering experience in the past so I didn't want to miss out this year even though I'm under pressure of getting ready for the craft fair, doing my tax & dealing with the family.


I suppose part of me feels that making my art is self-indulgent, pointless, it doesn't save lives (except mine). So to beable to do this thing that I love, to have it considered of value, and raise money for a good cause, it really is empowering.



I got prepared through the week by painting a base coat on the canvases and glueing on scraps of patterned fabric (which is my preferred way of working at the moment, they suggest the colour scheme and rythmns of the composition to work with). So yesterday I could just sit down and paint. Here they are pretty much finished - I might do a bit more fiddling with the angel one, I don't like the flowers at the bottom - and then hand them in next Saturday. The opening is Saturday the 14th 6pm.

1 comment:

  1. These are so beautiful, what a wonderful way to share your art. Thank you for your warm comment on flickr, lovely to hear from you.

    All the best!

    Julie

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