A Weekend Away

This past weekend Bob and I went over the mountain to Nelson for a few days. Bob was participating in a weekend gathering of community bands but I went for a painting play-date with my friend Linda.

Linda had some plans for a large abstract painting that she wanted as a feature of her newly renovated Bed & Breakfast bedroom. As this was the largest piece she had every done she was understandably hesitant. This is the finished painting.

Linda's "Journey"

Linda wanted to use various colours of the house paints that decorate the B&B but wasn't sure which would work best in the new room. So we practised!

practice board

I had a piece of masonite with me that I had intended to use for my own painting but it ended up being a testing board. First I slapped on some colours that were similar to the base coat on Linda’s canvas, then I added some of the other colours she wanted to use. That gave us a chance to decide what colours worked best. Linda chose the darker sand tone and the green and sponged them on the canvas randomly. The next step was to determine the subject colours and how to apply them. Once again colours were applied to the practice board, this time by Linda. The choices were purple and cream and the application was splatter and swipe with a 3 inch house painting brush. This part was done outside with Linda standing over the canvas. This was fun, especially when the wind decided to help with the direction of some of the streams. Although neither of us was sure the painting was finished we left it alone until the next day. Sunday morning we decided the painting needed just a touch of an accent colour - hence the splotches on the practice board. Vermilion was the colour we liked best and, fortunately, one of my acrylic pens was the perfect colour. A bit of thought, some practice and voilà -the painting was done! And, there were two very satisfied artists in the house.

While Linda was working on her painting, I was doing some playing of my own.

stencil and sparkle play

#1041 - Storm Tossed - 11 x 14 acrylic on canvas board

#1042 - WIP?

Of all the paintings I did during the weekend the only one I like is Storm Tossed. It was an old painting of Linda's that she didn't like and she suggested I 'fix' it or change it. I didn't change much so I had her sign it too - a collaboration between friends!

Although most of the time painting is a solitary endeavour, it is good to be able to work together to a satisfactory finish, whether it is just with ideas and suggestions or if it is some actual hands-on help.

Btw - here are a couple of photos of the waterfall behind the place where we went for dinner on Saturday.