Painting challenge, there when I needed it, done. Now, an upcoming show!
/It seems we have some catching up to do! The last time I blogged was last summer. Even after several of you asked me if you had been dropped from my blog list, I wasn’t motivated to write. So let me tell you a little story.
In April 2017, Kathy Brusnighan asked me if I would like to be a part of a show Laura Gibson, art curator at the Center for Creative Leadership, was putting together for January 2019. Of course I said, “Yes”. Little did I know how important that opportunity was going to be for me in the future.
In September 2017 I had a health crisis that took my attention away from doing art. for several months. Once that had been handled I was ready for a new challenge. By this time I had dates, directions and specifics about the show. Participating artists were to use North Carolina poets’ words and interpret them into fine art. Sounds like a great challenge, doesn’t it… translating poetry into a visual project?
Click to enlarge for reading.
Fortunately for me, at this same time, I was taking an online course with Antrese Wood, the host of Savvypainter.com, called Growth Studio. The course included a segment called “Reverse Engineering”. This segment had taught me that I needed to plan by starting with the date of delivery and working backwards to achieve my goal. My first challenge was to find poetry that fit my artistic tendencies and inspired my creativity. I settled on a poem by Betty Adcock entitled “TopSail Island” and my excitement grew. I read the poem over and over to get a vision in my head of how I could transform the words or the sentiments into paintings. This part was fun as well as challenging.
I have had the pleasure of vacationing on TopSail Island over the past 12 years, therefore I had tons of photographs from various times of day and various activities on the island. With so many photos to choose from I had to keep in mind which ones could complement my painting style the best and which ones were over my skill level.
I finally decided upon which photographs I was going to work from. The next step in the project was deciding on the size of the each painting. Then ordering the linen panels and canvases as well as pigments so that once I started the project I could move through without having any handicaps. I made a sheet for each of the 11 paintings with the inspirational photo and line of poetry along with the size each painting would be… now I was ready to paint.
The first of August I started my first painting of the series and at the end of November I finished the final piece. I had 11 paintings completed, wired, labeled and ready for delivery December 7. This photo shows 10 of the 11 paintings done. One more was on the easel. Whew!
I cannot tell you how rewarding it was to work through a project of this magnitude and be so pleased with the results. I’m looking forward to sharing these paintings with so many of you.
Stay tuned for more about the show soon!
