There is an old elementary school over the mountain that the neighborhood has taken over and turned it into art studios. We went to take a look one day, and were very impressed with what they are doing there. The rooms are being rented by local artist for their studios. Wow... what a set up!! Some are retired from their other jobs and are now full time artist. Many of them teach classes, willing to share their talents with others. It was very inspiring to walk around and take a peak into the studios.
A new artist to be there Tricia Robinson, does awesome paintings. I love all of her work and especially the bright colors she uses...
Gina Hury, a very talented artist here in Birmingham, has her studio there. She happened to be there so we went in to speak to her. It was like walking into a candy store for me. Canvases of all shapes and sizes.. everywhere. I had never seen some as large as some of hers were!! Paint tubes and cans spread out over tons of long tables. easels set up all around the walls of the room. Gina, dressed in overalls, plattered with paint, was in her element. I knew her years ago when we were beside each other in an art show, or I should say, craft show. She is so well known now and her pieces go for so much that she no longer has to do craft shows. She shows in fine art shows where he paintings are sought after.
Then we met Rik Lazenby who has a studio there too. He teaches faux finishes and all sorts of
different finishes... We gave ourselves his winter class series for our Christmas to ourself present! We have been there for several weeks and now, and last week, we started the biggest of all of our pictures. He made a huge wood frame, 36x18" for us to use for our painting.
Fisrt, I taped mine in 8 different square pieces... using painters thin tape. Then, covered the whole piece with wood joint compound. After it dried, I carefully pulled the tape off to reveal 8 separate squares, all divided up. I then penciled in my design and put another layer of the compound over the outline of the design. I am working on a tree and branches with two birds and a nest of eggs...
After I was finished with the outline of the tree and working on the nest... I found some burlap strings that we had pulled out from another project. They still have specks of the compound on them and
looked like some pine straw with elements on it... so I finished the nest up using those burlap
frays.....
This week, I will cover the whole picture with a color then shade the colors, then at the very end,
I am going to epoxy just the inside of the nest and the blue eggs. Can`t wait to get this baby finished!
I don`t think I will be making a habit of doing these huge pictures. I don`t have room in my house
for them, first of all, but I won`t have the wood frames that Rik made for us to use once I am at my
home creating and painting.. It has been fun to look at all of these talented artists there and to see their works.
It a a great resource that Birmingham has and I hope it continues to grow and more and more people
find out about it to support it....
I will post the finished product soon!!
Have a great week!!
Love
No comments:
Post a Comment