Time Crunch and Demo

"Sunny"
Watercolor 15 x 22 inches

This last few weeks has been unbelievably busy!! And I have been gone . . . .teaching . . .officiating . . .more teaching . . . .

I returned home from Sacramento, California, where I had given a 5 day workshop "Watercolor Beyond the Obvious," and near exhausted myself in the process. I awakened Saturday morning in a panic . . . I had to give a demo THAT AFTERNOON for a local art store who had just taken on Daniel Smith Watercolor Pigments. I hadn't prepared at all. What is more I hadn't touched a paint brush since my last post . . . surely over a month had passed.

To the studio! I had to rally . . .big time! Coffee in hand and nothing in my mind as to what to do or how to do it . . . . . .I grabbed my trusty sketch book and opened it to the first image that made any sense and began to paint. I had around three hours to get ready.

Demos can be a problem for me because I freeze up. I never know what I should paint or what sort of methods I should demo. The set up usually dictates a specific way to paint, too. That is either with or without an overhead mirror. The mirror allows the watercolor painter to lay his or her board flat or paint at a slight incline. Without one, the painter is destined to use an easel and paint vertically to the audience can see. And that is not how I usually paint. Well, you guessed it . . . . .there would not be a mirror. So, I was in a stew, wondering if I could pull it off.

Anyway . . . . .I went . . . .some 60 people were there with standing room only! This was the demo painting . . . . ."Sunny."

The best thing to do is to relax, I suppose, and just let whatever is going to happen happen. It is sort of like working in your own studio. Cut the worry and just be present with the paint. It was fun to commiserate with the audience about the design decisions and to cut up a bit. They were a terrific crowd!

After it was finished, I had concentrated so hard, I couldn't get the silly thing out of my head. So, on Monday, I went to the studio and opened a can of crazy! Yep! I went there and painted three completed paintings . . . .and they all came out okay. More about those later. But I haven't had that much fun in the studio for a long time!!!! Whooopeeee!~