Oils R Us.........

There were a lot of artists materials at the show, so we booked an oil painting 'make and take' on the second day - I rather bullied the others into it, (come on, it will be fun). So here we are, very posey all ready to start. Diane in the aqua (luckily she wore lovely bright colours so that we could find her easily, Mandy and I kept losing her), me in the middle, and Mandy......... 

Now bear in mind that none of us had ever done any oil painting before, this is how we started - a splodge of murky paint trailing up the canvas..... 

and here we are, the class of 2012 with our almost identical masterpieces. No, it wasn't painting by numbers, he showed us what to do, and we did it. Impressed? We were!

Ta Da.......here is my work of art. Not bad for an hours work, and it was a lot of fun.  It will never make it onto the wall, but I still feel a sneaky sort of pride that I painted it

 We did consider offering them to the hotel - they had the most awful paintings on the walls of the lift lobby on each floor (we rode up and down in the lift especially to see them, and took photos of them).....I mean, look at the yellow one, Kiki would have done a better job, and she is only seven. Come to think of it, Monty and Milo could have done better and they are only two. Presumably the hotel paid good money for these - they should have gone to the show, they could have painted some for free......

I loved the look of these felt flowers, so I had to make one of those for myself.....

Here it is, I think it's really stylish, a bit big to wear on a sweater, but I think it would look great pinned to a belt....... 

Some of the stands were so prettily decorated.....these are tiny little felt hearts trailing from ribbons

Just look at this table setting made out of beads.....

and some very special Christmas baubles

These were nice, made from Nestabilities, they put large beads in between the layers to keep them apart, and threaded them onto wooden skewers. They would make a very pretty decoration for a party table I think 

and there were some people there who really could paint, an artist was painting this with watercolours, I loved it. Now I would hang that on my wall in a flash........


Back to the oil painting - they gave us a large artists box to carry them in, with the masterpiece carefully taped by them so that they wouldn't move around. So we lugged them home on the subway, had another mutual admiration session at the hotel, and when it was time for me to fly home, I just carried the box as hand luggage. Honestly, the Mona Lisa hasn't been as well treated as these blessed paintings. So there I was, just about to settle myself in the plane when I realised I had left the box at the gate. So I had to push past everyone trying to get on the plane - you know, that time when everyone is opening and shutting the overhead bins, then leaping to their feet when they realise they have forgotten to take out their book.... So there I was, going against the flow,  muttering 'excuse me, sorry....sorry.....excuse me.....terribly sorry......'
The flight attendants looked suspicious and asked where I was going 'terribly sorry, I left a valuable painting in a box by the gate'.
VALUABLE!
Where did I get that from? It was a free 'make and take' for heavens sake. Still I rescued it, and now that I have it home (I'm going to whisper this, so come close.....) I don't like it very much.


I still have photos of cards from the Copic stand, and a few others,  to show you tomorrow, so see you then