Snug Cove: The Blue Door

My girlfriends, Deb MacAdam and Pam Bell
took this shot of me during our walk
around Killarney Lake in January.

Snug Cove: The Blue Door

I had a race with time this last week painting a 8 X 8" submission for  a Gala auction at Bowen Island's Community Gallery Fundraiser.  I've never submitted a work before for a fund-raiser, so this was a new challenge for me.  I wanted the bidders to get their moneys worth, so I put a lot of thought into the subject matter, something they would recognize and appreciate about living on Bowen, and into the execution of the painting.  I spent about 20 hours on this work.

The deadline for submissions was 4 p.m. yesterday, Feb 1, and I got it in by 3:30.  I've never painted under the pressure of a submission date before, and in some ways it was helpful, I got at it, and in other ways it was a bit of a compromise.. I would have worked a bit longer on some of the details, and I should have put a coat of urethane over the whole thing at the end to secure the paint.  I coated and sanded the board I was working on about 3 times before I started painting to give it a smooth and slick surface to paint on... gloss urethane.  The slippery surface held the paint, but I could take a q-tip to any error and simply wipe it away with no residue.  That way, I could continually clean up mistakes without having to worry.  It made the execution of the work go quickly and I had confidence that no matter what I did, it could be corrected.  The drawback?  I'm worried that any abrasion will scratch off the paint too easily.  So I had better 'fix' the painting with a final coat, maybe after it has sold.