Portable Art

Today we had a yard sale. For some reason where we live people start yard sales on Friday, so we decided to follow the local custom. We actually had more business than we expected and the weekend promises to be a lucrative one. In any event, when you are having a yard sale, you have to sit with your "stuff" and be available to your customers but there is down time. It is a good opportunity to practice a little art. This was especially true today because the yard sale was not in our yard. We carried everything to a friend's yard where there is better parking, better visibility, and more traffic.

So, what do you take when your resources are somewhat limited? I thought about watercolors, but I didn't want to have to mess with water containers while I was also handling "merchandise" because people are not always careful about where they set things down. Genesis presents a drying problem to say nothing of the mess of having wet paint on a palette. Oils present a similar problem. I decided on my chalk pastels and it turned out to be a good decision. You need very few supplies: paper clipped to a support, pastels, Q-tips and stumps for blending, a terry towel to put under your support, and baby wipes to clean your hands. I have been looking for an opportunity to work with pastels again and today presented the perfect excuse.

Here is the piece I worked on. It is the second pastel painting I have ever done. It is done on MiTientes paper in a grey tone. I forgot that MiTientes has two different surfaces and I used the rough side. This piece really should have been done on the smooth side and it has a bit more visual texture than it should as a result. I need to work the background a bit more and I need to fix the shape of the lemon on the right side. Overall, though, I am pleased with the result given that it is a new medium for me.