sbhansen ART Blog

If there was ever a time for an egg to be serenaded, this was it.  It’s Portland, Oregon?  And you know the reputation for Portland and it’s No-Cruelty-to-Animals(that we eat ;)policy, right? I’m not necessarily making fun of Portland and it’s quirkiness.  After all, I lived there for 12 years.  Which probably explains a lot.

Well, this egg found himself at the Portland Saturday Market.  Why so sad, you ask?  His mother, model chicken that she was, spent her days daintily nibbling at custard-crusted insects, sipping mineral water in the organic garden and eating enriched wheat grass before tucking into bed at night.  I have proof:  Portlandia.

Think symphony music. But on this day, some Ya-Hoo from the carton next door blabbed that Life After This was not so good.  There were rumors of coffee, toast, and…EGGS?  What?!!  He got the drift.  There was no hope of a happy ending for our little friend.  That’s when the low, rhythmic bawwow wow wow of a didgeridoo came through the fray to soothe our poor little anxiety-ridden egg at the Saturday Market in Portland last weekend.  Trust me.  I saw the whole thing.  Hence, the title of my new painting, “Didgeridoo Eggs.”  Don’t know what a didgeridoo is?  Well, I video-taped the gentleman playing the thing, and you can clearly hear bagpipes in the background.

So anyhoo…the Portland Saturday Market proved to be much different from Pike’s Place Market in Seattle. Guys in kilts playing bagpipes, petitioners trying to get us to sign a petition, organic produce piled high in visual delight, wonderful food smells…and, of course, the guy on the ground playing a didgeridoo.  Super cool.  I loved the area and went crazy taking photos of all the fruits and veggies.  I have so many reference photos for future paintings!  It’s nuts!  I don’t have the time to paint all that is in my head.

But I started with the eggs.  They called loud and clear to me, in all their white pureness, the old wooden box they sat upon, and the light whispering through them.  I had a square piece of plexiglass for this composition.  My last one, so I better get myself in gear and see if more framers have old plexi for me.

I finally successfully figured out Windows Movie Maker that I downloaded last week. The reviews said the program was simple.  It pretty much was, once I fumbled my way through trying to edit last week’s video and the flub-up with the audio.  This week, I used my camera on a tripod to video the egg painting.  Then, I downloaded it onto my computer and uploaded it into Movie Maker.  Problem was, it was sooooo long! My boys, Teenagers-Hooked-on-Media that they are, advised a time-lapse with a song.  No audio.  I figured out how to do it, so here it is:

http://youtu.be/Xcai7NDzBJ4

What do you think?

Below are some photos to show texture in the painting…pretty hard to see detail when the video is running at 8x!

 

The lettering on the front of the box was fun to do.  I painted the whole area with an underpainting of Cobalt Teal, quinicrodine Burnt Orange, New Gamboge, and a touch of quin. rose.  I allowed the area to dry, then went in behind some of the letters with Moonglow to pop them out.

I love the composition of this painting, with the dark and mid-dark values making a “Y” against the turquoise and white eggs.  I chose the single brown egg as a focal point in the composition.  All the other eggs sparkle of pure white.

Didgeridoo Eggs ranks up there in the top three in my ranking of seriously fun paintings.  I enjoyed every step of this painting.  It went so smoothly and quickly.  I propped the painting up in my house and looked at it every chance I got.  And you know what?  Everytime I glanced it’s way, I smiled.  Now THAT’s an accomplishment.  I hope the person who purchases this painting feels the same way.  And I hope you enjoyed this post.  Feeling creative?  Get at it!  Feed that beast!!