The Pub Sign

The Pub sign has taken over my life! I've been working on it almost 6 hours a day since August 15th and I have just 5 more days until it has to be done. It's going up at the start of a one day festival here in Ocean Park in the center of the Long Beach Peninsula. The one thing about it other than how great it's turning out is that I got introduced to the One Shot Oil Enamel paints which are what outdoor sign painters typically use. The solvents are hellish but the paint drys to a wonderful shiny silky smooth vibrant color that I just love. I wear my paint respirator but still. Anyway the sign is actually two signs - each side identical or nearly so.

The man whose sign this will be had strong inclinations for the plants he wanted shown and they have turned out fabulous. One, the Gunnera - or Dinosaur Food, I nailed spot on and so far he's happy with it. Today I'm on the final background and then there will be the topcoat.

Check back for a picture - it's so much better than the concept sketch I did. And in the meantime I finished the workplan for a Mixed Media-Getting Started class to be held in Astoria on October 17th. And I've been encouraged to do an Mixed Media-Next Step class in December, an Encaustic Introduction class in January and perhaps a spring series. I'm really looking forward to this -- and of course painting, encaustics and moving in our new house by christmas!

Painting and the Arts community

I sold this painting last week to friend Sharon who must have seen this one hanging around my studio for a long time. I did the underpainting back at Patricia's studio before moving to the peninsula but didn't do anything with it. Then a month ago I started finishing it and became very happy with the strong gestural strokes and then with the addition of some composition corrections, it was done. And it looks beautiful on her dark blue wall surrounded by metal starfish, crab and salmon!

I've now got another of those paintings whose underpainting was done some time ago on my table and I've got some ideas to finish. So that and 2 more small collages are what I'm working on.

In addition, Julia Carter who is head of the Arts & Cultural Exchange in Astoria saw my work hanging at Azure in Illwaco. She called me and I went over and met with her and toured her lovely workspace and agreed to do at least 3 one day workshops over the next 6 months to a year so I'm busy now making a flyer advertising the class, working out the details of the workshop plan and coming up with a materials list. First up will be a mixed media class, and one will be an encaustic plan and then we'll see how it goes to decide what the rest will be. I'm excited about that.

And the sign project is coming along as well. I've finished cutting and sanding the marine plywood for the signs, 2 coats of oil based prime and 2 coats of oil based undercoat. I expect to start painting the design on Tuesday and hope to finish by Sunday next week and I'll put up a photo as soon as I can.