What a great opportunity I had last weekend participating in a three day workshop on face painting with DJ Pettit of Medford, OR! Our class was sponsored by the Kentuckiana Calligraphy Guild, and about 15 of us met in downtown New Albany, IN at Preston's Art store for the workshop. We all had a terrific time working on fabric and canvas with our Golden acrylics!
I don't know if you've been there or not, but downtown New Albany is an interesting jewel of a river town. I think it would be fun to live there. It's just across the Ohio River from Louisville, one of my favorite cities. I liked that place a lot---it was probably its tall, ornate, old buildings from the turn of the century that appealed to me most.
I stayed with my calligraphy mentor and dear friend, Jan Hurst who lives in Jeffersonville, IN. We had a whole lot of fun painting together! It was so much fun, in fact, that I didn't want the weekend to end, even though I will confess I did miss my husband Tim, my dog, and cat who were keeping cool indoors back in Fulton, KY where we live. However, I discovered through the workshop that there's something inside me that just wants to keep painting.
This was the first time I ever painted people or pets with acrylic paint. I have lettered a little bit on fabric prior to this, but had given little thought to painting people's faces with acrylics. I'm totally enthused after this class though, and I am bound and determined to finally launch my blog.
My first piece was of a lady I named, "Halida," but her nose kind of looked like a pig's. Tossed that one out as a learning experience! The second piece that I did was on a 9 x 12" canvas. I decided to add my corgi, Gwynnie, to this lady's picture. Several students in the class thought my picture was a self portrait, but I think it was the hairstyle that I chose that made them say that. What do you think?
DJ often finishes off her fabric pieces by machine stitching lines around and over them onto a heavy duty watercolor paper before framing. I can't wait to see how well my machine can handle this. Please stay tuned!
