I’ll Be Demonstrating at Side Street Gallery
A weekend off? Kinda.
I am doing a gallery gig on Saturday at the Side Street Gallery in Okoboji, Iowa. (about 2 hours away from my place)
The gallery is run by a friend of mine Mari Stewart, and she is celebrating her 30th year in business by having different artists each weekend come in and demonstrate. So I am on board for this weekend along with two artist friends of mine, Judy Hemphill and Katie Plucker (but the rest of the world knows her as Anita Baeke-Plucker.) It should be fun.
So if my goal is to demonstrate I really need something to demonstrate with. Do you think I have something I’m working on? Of course you all know me better than that. Nope, not yet. And as I am less than 24 hours away from said event, you’d think I’d get right on that. But no . . . I’m here blogging about getting right on it.
I had planned to draw something out 2 days ago in the evening, but went to see Angels & Demons instead with a friend. And last night well, I went to see Harry Potter with same friend plus my husband and her mother and daughter. Ahem . . . so tonight it is. Yes siree. . . tonight is the night. Ummm . . . I better get right to it then. Though you know, I hear Night at the Museum is playing in Pocahontas. I really did want to see that movie.
Mona, don’t worry about it. You will get inspired at the genuine last minute and have something splendid to work with — or demonstrate sketching right along with the rest as you pick a reference on your way out the door. Play to your strengths. Jump smack into your comfort zone — your favorite easy animal with not too complicated markings, your favorite medium, everything set up exactly the way you’re most experienced.
I dithered along and stressed and worried about my OPS member show entry for two weeks once I realized the deadline was the 15th. I went into a panic the day I found out about the deadline because I had nothing that qualified (I thought) and I had improved so much that I knew I should have done a decent big piece.
Right at the last minute after much wibbling in forums and stressing, I sorted my references and took a friend’s advice to play to my strengths, be that animals or landscapes. I abandoned all of my fantastic ideas that would’ve taken two or three months to do them justice and big pieces, went back to the large end of my comfort size — 8″ x 10″ i.e. scannable, so I would not have to worry about getting good light to photo it and trying to set up for the photo whether I was up to going downstairs or not… and picked a good reference of my cat that I took for something else more comfortably far off.
I sketched him, got in some basic values, and knew I had it right. I slept. I finished it on the 13th and it is one of the best oil pastels I’ve done in my life, tied for THE best one with the one I wasn’t sure if it qualified. I got a note saying Barn Swallow could be included, so I entered both of them with a clean conscience.
The result of all that procrastination was a better piece of art than I could remotely have expected. I bet your demo will turn out that way too — if you make it easy on yourself by setting it up right in your comfort zone.
Try a cougar. Lovely big cat, no spots or stripes to drive you nuts, but interesting markings nonetheless. Or a horse that’s got only a simple blaze, face portrait. Either would stun and impress your visitors at the demonstration.
Enjoy! (I really want to see HP too!)
Robert
Hey Robert that is some very sage advice. If you haven’t already done so, you should make a post or article on your site about it.
Though for me this was not a fear issue bot a complacency and lack of motivational one. Had it been a stressor for me I would have had a preliminary drawing done and half the painting completed well before the night before. I suppose it was the complete and utter “lack” of fear that kept me from getting after it sooner.
I found it interesting that the things you found easy (i.e. lack of spots and stripes) were the things that I most enjoy. Spots ans stripes make things easier for me as I am a sectional painter. Weird how artists can differ so much in their loves.
Hope all is good with you and the move. I haven’t had much time to go around and visit everybodiy’s sites. Maybe today as it is Sunday and I am moving extra slowly.