Pictures from Wall Ball

This was my first year painting at Wall Ball, which was every bit as fun as I was promised. It was a challenge to get a painting done in two hours, but there was a completely different energy to working in a room buzzing with activity than working in the studio.

Because of the time constraint, there was no way I could work in as many layers or do as much experimentation as I typically do, so I had mentally worked out an abbreviated process. Of course, things changed once I started working on the painting. Dry time was, as expected, my biggest enemy. I brought along a heat gun in an attempt to head that issue off at the pass. Seems like a smart idea, right? I was careful to use a low setting and keep the gun moving so as not to, you know, catch my painting on fire. (Or more likely end up with a bubbly singed mess.) Well… I ended up blowing an electrical circuit… oops. Luckily, Jim at Third Degree was cool about it and just asked me to please stop breaking the building. I also melted a hole in the top of my rolling plastic toolbox by absent-mindedly setting the heat gun on it during the electrical extravaganza. Ahem, adds character. Amazingly, I didn’t spill anything. A poor bystander knocked over my brushes due to the congestion of the crowd, and I had a hard time keeping people out of the range of my fixative spray, but no one ended up with a cup full of dirty paint water splashed across his or her fancy spring outfit, so I consider that a success.

All in all, I was pretty happy with the way my painting turned out under the circumstances, Bob Ross happy trees and all.

Here are some more pictures of me working feverishly:

Here you can get an idea of the room:

Nearly everyone I talked to said they were surprised and interested to see each artist’s work progress through different stages, and I did too, when I got a few chances to walk around. Here are some of the other artists working:

Fun night. There was a bit of controversy proceeding the event about the solicitations of donations from artists for charitable events, but I think SCOSAG did a nice job of making their event a win-win. (Some drink tickets for the participating artists would have been nice, but the free water was good too…) It was well promoted, and did provide a chance for a little exposure that some events often promise but fail to deliver, however primarily, I think this particular event is about the experience on both sides of the artist and the spectator.