A Time Lapse Peak Into Getting Ready For An Art Show

This week let's take a peek into getting ready for an art show.

Not that anyone should do it this way, but but this is how it goes for my crazy life right now.

Day 1: Demolish a home with 18 amazing friends and family members.

Day 2: Toss your calendar schedule, and dive into the mess. Embrace it really good, cause you will be here for a while. While embracing, free up one arm to throw everything else into a pile to be done at the bookends of the day. Mat the prints at night, run to the printer's during karate, tell yourself you will get to Michael's for the two mats you don't have before Saturday. If not, oh well. Have fun checking off your list when you conquer Michael's.

Key word: embrace.

Here's the time lapse I tried today. No. I do not have professional equipment and my tripod was balancing my phone between a jar of gel medium and a jar of mod podge.

Remember-I'm Embracing The Mess.

(EMT)

This is the rough finish:

Day 3: Pick up your order for frames and realize they are all the wrong size.

Day 4: Put plan EMT (embrace the mess) into action and create anyway. Open the order of prints and wonder if they will fit the frames you finally found. (As of writing this post, they don't. Of course.) Think about it later and start calling yourself Scarlett. 

Now order new prints and pick them up tomorrow and save the other prints for the second show.

Add purchase new frames to your list for the next show. 

Day 5: I won't try and figure out why the same weekend of the show my husband is on call, I have a baby shower and a wedding to attend and I get a text from Brenna's teacher saying Brenna wants to participate in the 5k run on Sunday for which the permission slip has to be turned in NOW. Oh, by the way, she has to be there by 6:30 am. By now, my arms are permanently wrapped around me from embracing so much that I might as well have on a straight jacket. 

I tell the teacher to have Brenna call me cause I will take the fall for the big N-O that is coming her way.

Day 6: (or thereabouts) As well as embracing messes, I begin to embrace giving thanks, having fun, breathing and going to bed to fall asleep HARD.  I'll check back after the weekend.

Give yourself a hug.

Linking to Paint Party Friday

Short and Sweet

I've been (miraculously) keeping up with the 30 Days Of Bible Lettering challenge, 

getting ready for the Redlands Downtown Artwalk on April 24, where the lovely J.D. Meyers is sponsoring me. I will be in this store from 12:00-3:00!

my grand dog was not happy with me not paying attention to her.....

Last but not least this week, getting ready for 

#demoday !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm sure our neighbors love this view.

It's been 16- sixteen months getting to this day.

It's gonna be epic.

It starts tomorrow, so I have to run. 

Gotta go take out some cabinets and put the sledge hammer I got for Christmas to good use.

playing along with 

Paint Party Friday

Meet The 3 Pens That Changed My Life.

O.K., so maybe I'm a little dramatic.

All though, in all fairness, these pens have made a HUGE impact on my life.

Say hello to (from top to bottom) the

Fudenosuke Brush Pen, hard tip, from Tombowusa.

My arch nemesis, the Dual Brush Pen in black and the fabulous find from Amazon, the Posca Paint Pen- which I found quite by accident.

All I do thanks to these three is think about lettering and I have joined a 30 day challenge over at 30daysofbiblelettering.com 

I won't lie-it's knocking me out of my tidy boundaries.

 I'm looking up all kinds of fonts, and I have yet another great reason to peruse Pinterest. 

I look at the other's and try my hardest to not think, "Oh. Well, then. Mine looks like a kindergartener did it." Instead, I tell my brain, "Maybe so, but that just means you have so many fun things to learn!"

I'm also seeing that I need waaaay more light in my art room and using bifocals compared to progressive lenses helps as well. Nothing that any self-respecting kindergartener would have to deal with, that's for sure. 

It all began with my new friend, Posca. The paint flows well, it dries quickly, you can color on top of another color and this means they all live on top of my desk. The only thing I have to watch is if I use them on any sort of a rough surface, the nib rubs off a bit. But they have stood the test. I used them on stained wood for a wedding project last week and they came through like a champ.

Next came the Dual Brush Pen. This one threw me for a loop. 

I wobble all over with this pen. I can't get the upswing to be thinner than the downstroke. It's a mystery to me. I have actually found it easier with a brush I found in Chinatown in San Fransisco!

I found I had more control with this, and I can't wait to find a better brush and more intense paints. Maybe I'll water down acrylics and see how they do. 

Then I found the golden girls of the brush pens.

Next to the Dual Brush Pen, the Fudoneske sisters pack a wallop when it comes to control.

See those little bitty tips?

Lotta control and you have to push on the downstroke. 

It's difficult to tell, but the one on the far left is the hard tip, the in the middle is the soft tip.

Here's another example:

Hard tip, Soft tip and Brush tip.

 Hard tip:

It flows fast and writes hard. You really have to make an effort on the downstroke.

Soft tip:

This has a juicy flow and the downstroke just needs a hint of pressure. 

There you have it.

It's far from perfect, but I hope I've encouraged you to give one or more of these a try. It's a great meditative process and just fun.

Thanks for joining me on this little road of discovery!

joining in on the fun at 

Paint Party Friday