My ArtPrize Adventure: Part 1

All Waiting and Art to Come

The first day of my ArtPrize adventure was full of painting hanging prep, including some basic supplies shopping, and rest. The evening was a fun jaunt to the artist's party where I got my swag bag and met other artists. The whole time I felt a bit fluttery with my anticipation of hanging 101 paintings on a brick wall the following two days. 

A less glamorous perhaps a bit industrial little piece of Gran Rapids
downtown where we parked before going to the Artist's
 party. I love the soft stillness that the early evening cool aqua sky
brought to the world in that moment. 

It was good silly fun to get "red carpet" photo in front of the
ArtPrize wall with my swag bag, artist's badge, and freshly made pipe cleaner bug.

The chalkboard wall in the artist's clubhouse. Sadly,
 I never contributed, though it looked enticing. I was busy waiting in
 line for my swag bag. ;-)

Another view of the artist's clubhouse. Do you see all those colorful squiggles on that divider? Those are pipe cleaners. The line for swag bags took quite awhile, and though chatting was happening it would have definitely dragged without those pipe cleaners. I made an imaginary bug with several different colors, and my Mom made a wand sprouting with magic. The other artist we were with was content to watch our progress.

After all the hubbub over getting swag bags and chatting we had gotten very little food, so on the way
back we stopped here. I'm sure this is quite an ordinary sight in this part of the country, but the vintage look of
this fast food chain made it more appealing than other late night fast food options. A good munch was had
and the day was ended on an expectant note.

Whole Piece #100!

I did it! I made it to Whole Piece #100 just yesterday. Now to prep everything for the big journey to Grand Rapids  (In just under 2 weeks!) for ArtPrize. I hope you can visit my series during ArtPrize 2014 at its venue Westminster Presbyterian Church.

"Whole Piece #100"
5" by 7"
Oils on Panel

P.S. I couldn't hold myself to just 100 paintings in the series, so today I completed #101 and I can't wait to share it.

Photo Journal: Almost to ArtPrize 2014!

Last week was a bit of a ride. As ArtPrize (a city wide art experience and competition with visitors from around the world in Grand Rapids Michigan) approaches quickly (I'll be leaving for Grand Rapids in less than 30 days!) I have a few more paintings to complete and much prepping for getting 100 paintings over 2000 miles away. 

91 paintings on a single shelf

At the beginning of last week I got out all the paintings from the series I had stored away and stacked the panels at a slant in just one shelf of my bookcase. My plan was to do the first big layout of the paintings and even possibly complete the series. The next day I had planned on completing a painting in the morning and doing to the layout in the afternoon, but strange viruses strike at any moment and this virus struck. 

Underpainting of Whole Piece #92 started the next day.

lively progress

Whole piece #92 was finished the day before the first big layout was to commence.

Still with many breaks I was enjoying painting Whole Piece #92 and by midday the following day I had completed the painting. With most of the series done and dry this was my first chance to see them all together and I was too excited about it to wait until I felt better.  I packed up my paintings and carried them out to the barn. From there the process was slow with many breaks but thanks to my father-in-law who had set up the surface to lay the paintings out on and my husband who helped me in the layout, as I needed to rest a bunch, I got a pretty happy result that helped me make the final decisions for the paintings that need to be added to the series. And thankfully I didn't even kill myself climbing a ladder while dizzy to the barn loft to get a good look at the paintings. 

All 91 dry small paintings are laid out first on three separated boards that are each 4' by 6.'

When the arrangement of the paintings was looking good my husband and father-in-law
scooched the boards together for me.

It was the best light I had seen a grouping of this series in yet. Natural light diffused from
cloud cover coming in through open barn doors.

My view of the series from the barn loft, about 15' up.

The week went on from there and I was too weak to get much done, but I wanted to paint so I completed #93 and started #94 with copious breaks. All in all not too shabby of a week after all. :-)

Evening tea (green tea with almond milk and a bit of honey) after my afternoon tea, and a couple
of cups of morning tea to keep the painting going. Lots of tea was consumed in this exhausted week. 

Whole Piece #93 done after several days working on it for short periods while I was sick.

A detail from Whole Piece #94 in process.

P.S. As of today Whole Piece #94 & #95 are completed and #96 is today's work. This is the final count down. I'm aiming at pushing through to the completion of The Whole Piece Series this week.