Vero Demo - Challenge

I was asked to do a demo for the Vero Beach Art Assoc. This was the first time I had to perform in front of a whole bunch of people. I thought I would be in a small room, and only 10-15 people would show up. As it turns out, they put me on a very large, dark stage with 150-200 people watching.  They gave me one hour to finish. Yikes! More pressure.  I brought one spotlight because I knew I wanted to look at some strong shadows. I should have brought a second to light up my palettebox and painting. Alas...

This was my setup. I turned the table a bit before getting started to get a better shadow of the pear.

 I'm standing in the dark. As I tried to paint, I kept trying to make it lighter and lighter. Finally I added pure white, and it was still dark. Oh nooo. Now what? I've got all these people watching. I finally put a studio mat on it, and called it finished. I took the light off the setup, and directed it on the painting. What a surprise a little light makes. Considering the challenge of poor light, I was pleased with the result.

It was so dark on that stage.

Peony with Pear...12" x 12" oil on linen

I learned a very important lesson from all this, that I wanted to share. We all know, when we paint outdoors, and there is to much light, our paintings can look very dark when we bring them indoors.  Well the opposite of that is also true.  If there isn't enough light, we keep trying to make it lighter, and lighter.  Then when we put it in the appropriate light, the painting will be to light. Mine is very light. Notice, no darks.

This was fun. One of the people in the audience did this drawing of me while I worked. I love this.

It's a 2" jewel that I framed. Thanks.

The painting was raffled off for their fundraiser. The gal with the winning ticket was thrilled. They are all a nice group of people.