Paint & Pour

A friend my book club organized an art event at Paint & Pour (http://www.lexingtonpaintpour.com/) this week.  Not only is this a place where you can do paint nite type of paintings with friends but even better is that they cut out giant shapes such as a pumpkin, anchor, elephant, etc... made out of wood and each person can choose want design they want.  You order a head of time and then the night of the event you can all hang out and paint your own piece. 


There ended up being about 20 of us at the event. We brought wine and food (which makes every event better).  I loved the look and feel of the studio space. It spelled great, was beautiful, played great music, and was overall just a wonderful atmosphere to hang out with your friends and paint in.


Of course if you have some OCD traits (like me) you bring your own brushes, mix your colors (instead of using the colors straight from the bottle) and you end up closing the place (being the last person there) because you really focus on the straight edges being perfect.  I created this huge owl for my door and I love it!


This inspired me to try and host a paint and pour night at my place.  I found a site on Etsy (https://www.etsy.com/shop/TaraMarProducts?ref=l2-shopheader-name) that creates giant wood cut outs so my tentative plan is to invite friends over, have them pick out their design ahead of time and I'll order them. Everyone can bring paints to share and wine/food and we'll have a paint and pour.  Now for the execution....

Run Like A Diva!

I've seen the Diva race series for a while now and thought it looked like a fun race to do. I mean come on you get a tshirt, a pink boa, a pink tutu, a tiara, a giant medal, your picture with a hot fire fighter and champagne! Totally worth running for.  This race series comes to Myrtle Beach annually so back in January when they had a discount going my friend who lives in MB and I convinced each other to sign up for the half marathon Diva race.


Once again this sounded like a good idea until it came down to the training. I was doing really well with training increasing distance and speed, then I got pretty sick with a sinus infection that took forever to feel better. By then I had started a new job with different hours and therefore it took time to readjust my running routine. Needless to say other than running 11 miles once the most I got up to consistently was 8 miles at a decent speed.


So heading into this race I again didn't feel confident of my abilities. I was very worried about the weather being hot and humid as it took place May 6th. Luckily, the weather turned out perfect. We had a cold front come in and day temps only got up to around 72 degrees.


I was super excited about the weather cooperating and the fact that from the beginning of the race I was keeping up with the 9min. pacer.  I discovered the pacer was actually going faster than 9min. miles and I did well keeping up until about mile 8. I had to start lagging behind a bit otherwise I knew I wasn't going to finish without having to walk.  So I slowed to my pace and did a lot of positive self talk.

The end result was amazing! I ended up finishing in under 2 hours at a time of 1:58:33.  I place 81 out of 1,250 half marathon runners.  I hadn't done that well in a race since my first half marathon. This was my 5th.  The race path itself wasn't all that exciting but it was fun to see the outfits and enjoy a beautiful day.

before

after

Tunaless

Here is a mixed media piece of art that I created within a couple of days.  I purchased this awesome expensive canvas relatively cheaply at a city wide yard sale in February.  It had a painting on it that had some texture. I got the canvas for $10 but it is a $60 or more professional canvas.  I bought it with the intention of painting over it once inspiration struck which it did about 2 weeks after purchasing.

I decided to use joint compound and slather it all over the canvas. Thought it then had to much texture so I took half of it off and then used a giant bubble sheet and pressed it down on the canvas over the we joint compound to make an interesting texture.  I used a blow dyer to dry the canvas quickly. Then I used a couple of shades of red to paint the entire canvas.  I drew on a funny looking cat and then proceeded with the back breaking work of painting the cat in stripes.  This was painful because it was a large narrow canvas that I had on the dining room table and was bent over standing up the entire time painting.  The final process was to use charcoal pencil and highlight parts of the cat.

I really liked the outcome and so did many other people. I got about 2-3 offers to sell it but no one wanted to pay me the min. wage price I was asking for it for the time and materials.  In the end it worked out as it should. My boyfriend loved the painting and calls it "Tunaless" and encouraged me to keep it.  He states it reminds him of how he looks when he is hungry and doesn't have access to food as quickly as he'd like. :)

Twin Art

I got inspiration for this piece from the hotel room paintings when I did the Kiawah Half Marathon.  I loved the colors and random pattern in the paintings. There was two that were almost matching but not quite.

What I didn't realize was the time it would take to create these paintings. The circle pattern and the many layers of each color on each circle took an inordinate amount of time.  After completing one piece I posted it on Facebook and received a lot of positive feedback. One family friend stated it would go perfectly in her bedroom remodel. I told her it was one of two pieces and she said she was interested in them. I made the first before Christmas and then the holidays happened, so the second one didn't get made until about a week into the New Year.  Considering that I was stupid enough to have shipped the first one to her and so I had to match it by the pictures I took, I think it turned out pretty well.  She even sent me a check to help cover the material and shipping cost plus a few bucks extra. Woohoo!!!

In the end I found out through this person's mom on FB that her mom wanted the pictures even more for her front room and ended up stealing them from her daughter.  I must agree the room color is perfect to display the paintings! I love seeing my artwork actually hung/being displayed.

One in dark lighting.

The other in bright work lighting.

Another Creative Barter

At the Crapmus party I bartered with a friend to get her comic book socks. So I had to create a piece of art for her.  Below is the small mixed media painting I came up with. My friend states that she thinks she got the better end of the bargain.  Since I got the socks for my boyfriend and he has yet to wear them I'd most likely agree with her.

Be a Super Hero & Get to the Green

Since the half marathons in Nov. and Dec. I slowed down on my running for a little bit and had some fun working out using other machines including walking outdoors, the elliptical, bike, and rowing machine.  I did my first race in Charleston, SC in mid-February. I conned my boyfriend into running the Super Hero race with me and spending the weekend in Charleston. Little did we know that it was a 5k trail race. This was only his second race and his first ever trail run. Ooo it was a little rough for him but he was a good sport. We went decked out as Spiderman and Wonder Woman!

Next up was the St. Patty's Get to the Green 10k in Columbia, SC.  I didn't sleep well the night before and woke with a sore throat but the weather was a perfect 50 degrees and cloudy and the rain held off until the race was done. I met a friend at the race and for the first time I got to test out my speed since I had been working hard at getting faster like I use to be.  My final time was pretty good- 57.22 for 6.2 miles. I placed 131/327 overall.  My pace time was just under 9 min. mile. Woohoo!

Next up is an all new race by Strictly Running of Columbia and is called the Daybreaker 10 mile.  I have a lot of running to do to get up to 10 miles in a couple of short weeks.

Creative Exchange

A girlfriend of mine from grad school who now works in Ohio has been into knitting. I knew she did this in grad school during classes as she has ADD and it helps her to focus, but over the years she's gotten insanely talented at knitting. I've seen her work on Facebook and one day saw that she had made a knitted tablet case. I thought this was pretty cool and sense my tablet case just recently broke I suggested we do an art exchange.  She liked my paintings and so we exchanged a painting for a knitted tablet case.  This was a very fun exchange utilizing our creative selves.

Crapmus & Galentine Parties

Through my Women's Social Meetup group I met this energetic gal who happens to be from Buffalo, NY. Woot, woot!  She is a crafty creative soul and introduced me to the Crapmus and Galentine Party.  Maybe you too haven't heard of these so I'll tell you all about them in this blog.

A Crapmus party is where you get all of your girlfriends together, have some food and drinks and bring rewrapped gifts that you don't want that you got for Christmas or for some other occasion.  It's a wonderful way to spend a Saturday night.  Made even better by my friend making actual fake poo pile ornaments as take home gifts. This party typically occurs after Christmas into the New Year. In addition, it's a PJ party!

A Galentine party typically takes place around Valentine's Day and is a great way to celebrate all of the wonderful strong women in your life. Again the party consist of great drinks and food but this time you bring with you some arts and crafts projects/supplies and get to create while celebrating your friendships. This too was a wonderful way to spend a Saturday evening.

Important note you can host a Crapmus or Galentine party any ole time. :)

I'm in the Mood to Paint!

Throughout the month of December and into the New Year I finally had time to paint!  I'd purchased some canvases a while back and had some ideas of what I wanted to paint but finding the time was key.


First, I started with a little birdie collection of 4 small 5x7 pieces.  Materials used was acrylic paint, charcoal pencil, stamps, and canvas.  One painting also had joint compound involved so that I could play around with some more texture.  I posted on Facebook and I had two people that wanted one each. So I'm down to two and have no idea what I will do with them. I actually really enjoyed working small and would love to create a little birdie series. No idea what I would do with them though.

Then I started on a larger long canvas. I got this idea from a couple of hotel paintings I saw in my room when I went did the Kiawah 1/2 marathon.  This was all acrylic no other mixed media involved.  Each circle involved a lot of layering so it took longer than expected to complete the piece.  I also forgot how tedious creating branches can be.  I posted this on Facebook and immediately had a friend went it. I hadn't even completed the matching piece yet.  So, I went on spent another 3 days completing a similar but not exact matching piece with the intent that they be hung side by side.  Once my friend sends me a pic of them side by side I'll add it to this post.  They look a little different below only because one was a horrible picture I took at night (I should have known better) and the other was taken in my fluorescent light office.  They are actually the same colors and same design.