paint your palette blue and grey

[pensnest]

I've had a very arty-crafty couple of days, and how nice it has been!

It's Norfolk Open Studios season, and I have gone through the brochure and made notes and managed to book workshops, and am thus very pleased with myself. The current petrol drought has meant that a lot of the artists are finding they get no visitors, not surprising but a shame.


Yesterday I went to a papercrafting workshop. On the way down the A11 I passed a garage with an enthusiastically crammed queue of cars lining up for fuel - the one on the opposite carriageway was empty, coned, and presumably bereft of petrol. I managed to get off initially at the wrong exit, found myself turned back around and heading towards Norwich, but luckily didn't have to drive too far before I could get off again and hare back to the proper exit! After all the shenanigans I still got there about a minute before I was due...

It was quite enjoyable. I was the only person who had booked in, so rather than following a set routine, we explored stuff I thought sounded interesting. Use of shaving cream in creating a funky background was my favourite thing, I think. The person doing the papercrafting was engaged with a craft enterprise that struck me as rather like arty-crafty Tupperware, ie a catalogue full of Essential Things which you combine to make, admittedly, quite pretty cards with lots of little details. I bet it costs more to equip the users than they can possibly earn from selling the cards, though that doesn't necessarily matter if they're having a good time. I made a card and a little easel with a tiny Season's Greetings 'painting' on it, both quite stylish.

Today, I went to an Acrylics workshop. There were three of us attending, and we'd been told to bring a photo of something we would like to paint, but the artist had promised me she'd get me some flowers, as that was what I fancied doing. She came through with a bunch of sunflowers and dark red dahlias.

By the time we stopped for lunch I had produced this:



And by the time we were done, at 1530, I think it was finished:




The pics behind the cut are Rather Large! I'm rather pleased, all things considered. The artist in charge was very helpful to everyone, making useful suggestions about all kinds of things we could do to improve the work. We all did something different, so there was a Norfolk Landscape which turned into more of a Scottish Landscape (Norfolk is short of mountains), and a red kite in flight, depicted with one of its claws entangled with a mask, a very dramatic picture. We all had a lovely time chatting and checking out each others' pictures, which were so different that we couldn't even think about worrying that the other people were doing a Much Better Job.

So I have had a very satisfying day.

I'm hoping at the weekend to do a little tour of five studios which are all reasonably close to one another. Fortunately I'd filled up the Prius not long before the fuel crisis... and we don't need it regularly from day to day. But we'll see.

Comments

[yarnofariadne]

The painting is really lovely!

[pensnest]

Thank you!

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

Really lovely!

[pensnest]

Thank you!

[corvidology]

Sounds like a lovely experience!

[pensnest]

It was indeed. I was quite sorry that the artist's own paintings were not the kind of things I'd have liked to own - they were very clever and well done, but not my thing. I'd have bought something otherwise!

[badly_knitted]

Wow, that's really amazing!

[pensnest]

Thank you!

[smallhobbit]

Great painting!

[pensnest]

Thank you!

[kingstoken]

The painting looks great!

[pensnest]

Thank you!

[dine]

your arty-crafty days sound terrific fun! the painting turned out really nicely - good job, you

hopefully your weekend plans do happen, and is as much fun

[pensnest]

I'm glad to have gone to both workshops, but the painting one was definitely the most fun!

[spikedluv]

The workshops sound very cool! I love that painting!

[pensnest]

It was very good indeed. And thank you!

[sperrywink]

I love it! The painting is very AUTUMNAL.

Have fun this weekend at the other studios.

[pensnest]

It is - and I'd have said sunflowers were summery, but they actually seem to be quite late to flower. The dark red dahlia's were gorgeous.

[turlough]

I love your sunflowers and dahlias! They're so wonderfully happy and colourful! Sounds like it was a very fun workshop.

I hope you're having a nice weekend touring the studios!

[pensnest]

Thank you! I'm very pleased with them, and oddly, a couple of the dahlias in particular, although the sunflowers were more fun to do.

Going to post about that!

[turps]

Your painting really is gorgeous!

[pensnest]

Thank you! It's up on the board in my craft room now.

[rikes]

How fun, and the studio tour sounds great too!

[pensnest]

It's interesting looking at the different studios - some are really hobbyists, others are more clearly professional artists.

[kat_lair]

Oh that's a really great picture! Glad to hear you had such a fun and arty few days :)

[pensnest]

Thank you! I enjoyed the process a lot, too, and learned some good things.

[frausorge]

I love the sense of three-dimensional depth in the flowers. And also it's neat to get to see the interim stage two and get a bit of insight into how the layers are built up!

[pensnest]

Thank you! It was very interesting and quite a challenge to decide what the 'lowlights' might be and how to get that in there, but the artist in charge was really helpful. I was worried that the dahlias would end up as purpley-red blobs, but I think in the end I prefer them to the sunflowers!