Honestly there's nothing like awakening your own senses with art. I was "awarded" a utility box to paint for the Boston Shines event here in town. ( I mentioned it in an ealier post). Anyway, it was this past weekend that I had to paint it and paint it I did! This seriously got me out my mental box of art, pets and watercolors. I was extremely nervous about it because a.) I had never painted outside before. b.) I hadn't painted with acrylics since '94 (?) and c.) Hadn't painted anything even in a vertical position!! The photo I included is the box before I painted it. I will be posting the painting as soon as I finish this roll of film. ... yes I still use film.
Wednesday afternoon I went to Pearl paint in Cambridge (I still had a gift card from Christmas) and even though I used the gc, I still spent about $130 in supplies! Acrylic paint and brushes. The guy there was friendly, seemed to know what he was talking about and they let me use their bathroom :).... But I went home that night and started playing and painting so I could get re-aquainted with acrylics. The brush I bought was crap. It puffed up when I used it so I couldn't get a nice crisp edge with it and when rinsing and cleaning I noticed that some of the hairs were splaying out. Pet peeve alert!!!.
That Thursday I went across the street from Pearl to the Artist Craftsman supply. The guys that work there - oh they are just so awesome. I explained to one of them about my issue of the splayed brush and that I was looking for a brush that was going to stay stiff. (Enter lewd comment here.) He told me that the natural haired brushes, which is what I had, tend to act like your own hair. That when they get wet they puff up and it's hard to settle down. But synthetic brushes are lot less likely to do that. I got a couple of them and he's right: they are 10 times better. Then I had to go to Home Depot to get my primer, drop cloths and varnish. I tried to ask the guy at the paint counter what kind of varnish he recommends for outdoor use on metal. Well, he gets all smiley and starts flirting with me and I really was not in the mood. Ugh. So I kind of told him so that I really just wanted the varnish for my mural and not his comments he just would NOT help me after that. In fact just pointed with his fat finger which direction the varnishes were at. Ass.hole.
Friday left work at around 4ish and went to go prime the box. Thank dog I brought my paint scraper and x-acto blade because there were stickers and gum that were stuck to this thing and then just painted over with the standard gray paint. Ewww. Really made me disgusted with my fellow man and that how some people don't care about litter or how gross we really can be. Worked til the sun went down.
Saturday was out there at 10:30 and got to work right away. I had a woman from the Boston Globe come by and take pictures of me working, although she did say that there was no guarentee that this story was going to be published.... but asked her to mention my name if it was!! Some of the organizers had come by and fed me lunch as well! I had a lot of people drive by honking their horns and giving me the thumbs up. One really Irish guy came by (So Irish could hardly understand what he was saying, accent was so thick) and ended up talking to me for a few minutes. Then he asked, "So what are we doing tonight?" Good Lord. I managed to paint the whole thing on Saturday from 10:30am to 7:30pm and I did have a blast doing it. Now I have a TON of paint left over and I'm ready to paint the tables on my porch, as well as my next mural! This could be the start of a whole new adventure.
No comments:
Post a Comment