Report: Art of the Carolinas 2014

I've been going to Art of the Carolinas since it first started. Get this straight: I NEVER just drive around, but one day way back when, I was "just driving around" Durham because it was a nice day and I had gas in the car and the radio began to do a location report from this artsy something going on out in Research Triangle Park.

They talked about a trade show that had the latest art supplies, and of workshops being put on. I said what the hey, it's only 10 minutes away, and cruised over.

What I found kind of blew me away. It was the very first AotC, and from that point on I was hooked.

AotC is put on by Jerry's Artarama, which is like Heaven for artists. Well, artists who have money and who aren't bothered that the brand selection isn't as wide as it once was. Jerry's makes deals with certain brands and as a result, stops carrying other ones. Even so, whenever I go through Jerry's doors, I have to pause and let my heart pound for a few moments. Cue that heavenly choir!

AotC has settled to be housed at the Raleigh North Hilton, which is about three blocks north of Jerry's Raleigh superstore. There's always a van or stretch limo that runs between the two during the run of the show. Some of the workshops are now held at Jerry's, since the Hilton tends to run out of workshop space.

A schedule of workshops runs four days and the trade show runs the final three of those days. Big-name artists run a lot of the workshops, and others you see there year after year. Some big-name artists are there year after year as well.

I recall one of the first workshops I took, taught by the fabulous Tom Lynch. In it we learned how to paint windows and doors that had some soul to them: the top of the door didn't look like the bottom did. The window wasn't uniform. That kind of thing. It taught us to be aware of varying even the minor parts of our painting, to make the entire thing as entertaining as possible. Wow!

The second Tom Lynch workshop I took turned me off him. This was the kind where he had the entire class take their paper, mix up some yellowish-green, and then make a brushstroke across it. Whereupon he'd check that everyone had made that brushstroke. Then you'd put a square of blue wash underneath it. And so on, paint by numbers without the numbers and without learning anything.

So the quality of the workshops vary a lot, even with the same teacher presiding.

I once told my dad that I learned more at two years' of AotC—6-ish days total—than I had from four years in UNC's art department.

But AotC has changed through the years. There are fewer different vendors, though still quite a few, and familiar Jerry's inventory has taken over the majority of the trade floor, albeit with extremely good sale prices. One makes a shopping list before hitting the trade floor, and one checks one's bank balance before doing same, as well as confirming the cubic footage inside one's car. A few times I've come awful close to buying more than what my Civic will hold! This is the Big Art Shopping Trip of the Year with the best bargains as well.

Starting last year (or was it the year before?) I stopped taking so many of the workshops. This year I only took one: travel sketching in watercolor. I figure I'm traveling a lot more these days, and I'd love to do some sketching. In grabbing a sketchbook for the class, I was surprised to discover in it some work I'd done during my second trip to Montreal back in '05 or so. Not bad stuff, either.

It was odd not having to use my regular rolly-cart to bring in all my supplies; they fit in a single cloth bag, and even then I'd overpacked for the class. I claimed a section of work table. Even though Jerry's knew how many people had signed up, they still didn't have enough tables set up, and we had to wait a few minutes for two more to be brought in, with enough chairs.

AGES ago I'd taken a course in psychic/holistic healing in Durham. One of the students who also lasted through all three years was a woman I'll call Sandi (because I can't remember what her real name is). She can stick her hand in fire and have it remain unscathed. No, really. I've seen her do it. She has problems when someone screams (ahem), but otherwise, she's quite friendly with the fire element.

I've seen her at almost every AotC event. We'd never been in the same class until now (she's into more crafty stuff than I am), and we just happened (right, universe, I get it) to sit down opposite each other at the table before we both looked up and realized what we'd done! We had a lovely catch-up chat that likely confused our neighbors.

The older gentleman to my left had arrived without reference photos, as had MANY others in the class. I will never understand why people do this. AotC gives materials lists for every class, but there's always a huge amount of people who arrive lacking something important. Once I sat next to a woman who'd brought NOTHING, and wound up giving her an extra canvas, letting her use my paint, brushes, extra easel, etc, etc. Good golly! And of course, I've been in two classes where the instructor gave out completely incorrect equipment lists. Helloo?

The class began and our instructor showed us what kind of sketching she does, how she doesn't use store-bought sketchbooks but makes her own, etc. She showed examples of others' sketchbooks and how they used them not only to sketch in but to write or make notes, or gather little items that reminded them of—

"Excuse me!" a woman in the back protested loudly. "This class is only three hours long. Can we please get to the workshop part?" Her buddy added a similar complaint.

Our instructor assured them that we would begin immediately (even though what she was showing us WAS an important part of the workshop). Luckily for us, she has ADD or something and went on passing out samples that we all (except for the two biddies) studied.

The biddies went back to their tables and began to paint in their sketchbooks. The rest of us finished looking at everything, watched a couple demos, and then returned to try doing quick but bold sketches.

The teacher kept lecturing as we worked, and then she brought up using a pen. Good, I thought, we're going to incorporate pen-and-ink sketching as part of the watercolor, maybe learn what's best to note about a scene.

Instead the instructor outlined every change in color and/or value on her sketch. I asked Sandi why we were doing this. It had nothing to do with the scene we were sketching.

"It makes it look prettier," Sandi assured me.

But I didn't want 'prettier,' I wanted to make the best study I could so I could take it home and use it in conjunction with photographs I'd take on location.

This is the kind of thing you run into with these workshops, that the instructor's intentions are different from what you expected, but I was determined to learn what I could. Yes, the lines did make it look more finished, and people in the class assured everyone that they made the sketches more saleable. (But I didn't want saleable; I wanted reference.)

I managed two partially-finished sketches for the class. The first one we made a pencil sketch first (that's the Grand Tetons one), and the second we just dove in with paint first.

I like to think that these will help make more dynamic paintings when it comes to putting images on canvas. Certainly from the Gibbon Waterfall picture (below), I learned that the actual waterfall needs to be depicted much larger than I've done here.

The workshop ended, we packed up and left, and I strolled next door to enjoy my annual Bahama Breeze luncheon (mmm!) before returning for the trade show. I had my shopping list in hand and managed to find most of the stuff rather quickly.

But the show's checkout line looped clear around the three ballrooms that had been designated the trade floor. "Oh, the line's moving fast," one of the Jerry's employees assured me after I'd heard someone say they'd taken an hour to get through it. "You'll be finished in twenty minutes."

After 20 minutes I'd progressed ten feet. The massive line kept people from really perusing the stock in the crowded room, and it impeded traffic flow so that all the artists who were on the trade floor demonstrating various stock or techniques, weren't able to get a group to watch them because there was no place for the group to stand. I did have nice conversations with two of them as I stood waiting.

And the second-to-final stretch of the line did go by Jerry's "bits n pieces" displays. For example, I tossed a new kneaded eraser and gray scale into my cart. When we rounded the final corner, a woman a few people in front of me left the line to grab some paints. I told her that the Ultramarine she'd picked up was a very weak variety. I had the same jar, but only use it when it's pure, because the instant you mix it with something, it goes invisible. She frostily thanked me for the information but assured me that it was just fine with her, but about five minutes later I noticed her slipping out of line again to return it.

We stalled next to a table where a guy was demonstrating a new kind of organic brush cleaner made from lavender. Impressive! He'd gob up a brush with oil paint, scrub it around on a surface so the paint really dug into the brush, then dipped it quickly into the cleaner. When he brought the brush out, it was clean. Tried it out on a clean sheet of paper: no residue. "I don't care how much it is," I told him, "just give me a bottle."

It wasn't on sale yet; wouldn't be available for another two months. I got a little advertising card for it, as did just about everyone else in line, and eagerly look forward to trying it out in my own studio.

All in all, I was in line for an hour-plus. There were about eight? cash registers going as hard as they could, but even so, there were just so many people... They assigned a guy to help me load my car and after he'd gone, I wondered: should I have tipped him?

The folks at the show acted surprised when I asked if they'd do things differently next year so this kind of thing didn't happen again.

From there I toodled down the street to Jerry's. Jerry's doesn't ever put its alkyds on the trade floor and only stocks it in the store, so I grabbed new alkyds there. I asked one clerk where the acrylic gouache was, and she said it was all at the trade show. I assured her that I wasn't going back THERE again! I have an unopened tube of the stuff somewhere from a year or two ago; it's just a matter of finding it.

At the store there are three cash registers, but they only had two going. The line took about 25 minutes to go through, and people at the back were complaining loudly. The store manager was doing his best to keep people happy, cracking jokes about standing in line. Employees walked up and down the line asking us if we'd found everything we needed. They had a guy on steel drum playing stuff that got to be (sorry) annoying after a while.

All in all I was a good girl, spending-wise. Sure, the total was more than I'd estimated, but I got a lot of good stuff. (It helps that I know to stay away from the crap that's disguised by nice packaging.) I'd checked over the DVDs I'd bought last year but hadn't watched yet (good golly miss molly, how time passes quickly!) so I didn't buy any new ones.

With the new year I'll be painting again on a regular basis. Good to know I've got the supplies and know-how to do it!

Art of the Carolinas 2011

Many of you know that one of the highlights of my year is to attend Art of the Carolinas in Raleigh. I've learned to get a hotel room so as to avoid driving on I-40 after dark (and usually at rush hour), and to have an excuse to get room service for breakfast.

I stumbled onto AotC in its very first year when I was driving aimlessly through Durham because I was bored one weekend. Now, I NEVER drive aimlessly. This was a first for me. The radio station I was listening to was doing a remote from this event called "Art of the Carolinas," and it was being held in Research Triangle Park. Gee, that was just a few minutes away. I drove over and was astounded by the event having a workshop in which famed watercolorist Tom Lynch was teaching. (As I hadn't signed up, I couldn't get in, and so just attended the trade show.)

The next year I was prepared, and signed up for a Lynch workshop. AotC holds four days worth of 3-hour and 6-hour workshops, along with having a trade floor full of the latest and greatest art supplies, ably demonstrated by renowned arteests.

One year I think I took three solid days of workshops, 8 AM - 8 PM. I swore I'd never do that again. I value my sanity!

Having gone through a gamut of subject matter over the years, this year I decided to hit two versions of flower painting technique. I started with James Sulkowski's "Dynamic Action and Design in Floral Painting." Here was a realistic approach to the subject, with a concentration in really playing up a focal target in the picture and toning everything else down. That's my painting at the top of this blog.

I finished it in 4 1/2 hours. My brain halted after telling me, "It's done." Artistic neurons refused to fire. But class was 6 hours long. I bowed to the inevitable and snuck out. (A neat trick considering I'd lugged about a hundred pounds of supplies into class in three different bags, plus easel.) The neurons were in cahoots with my feet and back, I think. If I could have sat down for a while I might have been able to drum up some artistic energy. But certain folks (dark look their way!) confiscated the few remaining "extra" chairs for their art supplies. The nearest place to set one's butt was in the hotel lobby. Buh bye!

Out in the COLD parking lot, Dan "the Art Man" Nelson was painting one of his huge, gorgeous landscapes. I asked him why he didn't do Facebook videos (real time, start to finish) any more, and he said he was doing stuff on YouTube and I should stop by there. Here's a good start. Or try this one.

First thing the next day I took a Bob Burridge course: "Abstract Florals from Loose, Colorful Spatter." Now, you may know Bob (above) (someday I've got to read the instruction manual for my newest camera, as it began to go crazy about now) from his great newsletter, the Artsy-Fartsy News. I haven't decided whether Bob is more artist or showman, but he certainly knows how to run a lively class! He eschews the realistic look with its use of tiny, exacting brushes. He said that seeing Manet's later florals made him cry in public and change his art completely. Must remember to look those florals up! Bob says that an artist must demonstrate that they have "fire in the belly" and aren't just copying nature mechanically.

At any rate, this is one of the paintings I did in his class, utilizing the spattering/general mooshing-about of paint, followed by opaque negative painting:


Bob says that a painting is never finished. Oh, is that why I never know when it's done? He says the trick is to stop at an interesting point. This point is usually at the 90% mark. He also claims that he's going to make his huge art award (CT WC society? Somewhere up there) into a rodeo belt buckle so he can show it off to all the artists he meets and give himself more credibility. Uh huh.

Let's see. Next was Joe DiGiulio, whose classes I've also taken before (like Bob). (Joe's wife, Sharon, runs AotC. I often spotted her over the weekend. Her eyes were spinning and she looked like she was about to collapse, but things seemed to be going quite smoothly.) This time I was coming through to learn how to make series of abstracts, since everyone says you're supposed to paint in series in order to get galleries to notice you. Joe says that abstracts are made up of line, shape, color, and texture. But when you do them in a series they get a fifth quality: context.

He began his demo by pausing his brush above the canvases and saying, "I have no idea what I'm doing here." A woman in the audience quipped, "Then why are we paying you money for this?" Ah, we were off! We had terrifying fun.

And as usual when I get into an abstract class with no idea of how to begin, I turn to Wonder Woman. Here's the Wondie triptych I did:


Last but not least I got to SIT DOWN for 3 hours (my feet and back were KILLING ME!!!!!!) to attend a workshop on printing giclées. "Giclée" is a fancy French term for "ink jet print." Now, the ink is supposed to be as permanent as possible (they make great stuff these days at reasonable prices), and the paper should be archival. This particular workshop was sponsored by one paper company who had the testing results to back up their claim that they were best in the world. (Canson brand "Infinity" paper, which comes in all kinds of different types, including a watercolor paper that, after being fixed after printing, you can paint on). Noted painter Dick Ensing ran this class, and if I could suggest something, it'd be that he have a projector so everyone could see what the HECK he was doing with his Photoshop print commands. He could also stand to speak up a bit. And frankly, it didn't look to me like his monitor was color-corrected, but it might have been the angle I was looking at it.

He did color corrections a LOT differently than I do. Then again, he sells a SLEW of prints every month, so who am I to question?

One lady in the class persisted in calling giclées "zhiglays," and a gentleman said something along the lines of "zheegloiz." It's "zhee-klayz." And "Arches" paper is "arsh," as long as we're correcting everyone's French accent. We all kept saying, "arrrrrsh" and getting a big kick because it was late and we were getting silly.

Anyway, that Epson printer moves close to the top of my "must buy" list. Just as soon as the Brad Pitt/packing supply/comic book/frame storage guest room gets cleaned out, I'll have a nice space for it.

So if you're an artist and want to learn more from quality teachers (there were gawd-awful ones at AotC as well, but over the years I've learned who is who), check around to see if you don't have an event like AotC in your area. If not, come to NC next year two weeks before Thanksgiving and join the crowd! Give me a buzz and we'll go next door to Bahama Breeze for dinner one night (drool!) and compare notes.

Steppin' Out!

My vacation officially begins Monday. Fridays at work are short days. So I decided to make the most of my Friday afternoon and start the vacay off right.

It needed to, because my supervisor had dropped by to ask when it was (which he knew already) and if I'd be staying close in case he needed to call me. I reminded him that there was zero on my schedule for the next week. He keeps doing this, balking whenever I ask for vacation. I have ten weeks saved up. I have definite weeks when there is little or nothing to do. Why the fuss, then, of me taking vacation? I've asked around, and apparently he doesn't do this with others.

Anyway. I got out a credit card and started it smokin'. That's right, I signed up for my Art of the Carolinas classes. They'll be in November, but many classes, especially those on the weekend, sell out quickly. Surprisingly, I didn't sign up for the classes that had originally caught my eye. I got to thinking about things and by golly, chose a few alternates instead. I'll be learning two completely different approaches to still lifes—one in realistic oils and the other in crazy semi-abstract acrylics, going in for more abstract instruction from a very good instructor, and learning a bit of technical/marketing stuff concerning giclées.

And of course I'll need a hotel room for all that, even if it is just down the road in Raleigh. You wouldn't believe how exhausted you can get after frantically painting from 9 AM to 8 PM!

That done, I printed out a movie schedule for Harry Potter. For some reason I printed the times for all local theatres instead of just the one I was targeting. (Good thing!) Next it was off to the comic store to pick up a couple week's worth of comics. Still haven't read the special Wonder Woman issue, but according to just about everyone, it's a real stinker. Only saw 1 good comment about it. Oh boy. :^(

Plenty of time to head to Southpoint, the mammoth mall that I still think of as being new. I had a 3:40 appointment at Penneys for a portrait, so I moseyed around a bit, looking for some place to get makeup done. (I'd had my hair dyed two nights before. Don't want all that gray immortalized. The hair dresser went a little crazy with the red, which was only supposed to be on the very tips.) Because I was really early and didn't think there'd be time to eat before the movie, I got a snack and then visited the Bare Escentuals salon. (Penneys had a hair salon but no makeup.) There I agreed to buy a beginner's kit plus a couple other things. CA-CHING!!!! I told them about my 3:40 appointment; they said no problem.

I arrived late. Still, the photographer was buzzing around in her studio, so I thought it was okay. Even so, she complained about me being late. I asked why she hadn't answered my 2 emailed questions and she said she'd only gotten one. She didn't say why she hadn't answered that one. Anyway, I discovered that Penneys does not grant copyright to the sitter. I can use the shots anywhere but on my books—or to get a print done from Walmart, of course. Well, okay. Whatever. I'll be getting new shots done next year when I'm beautiful, right?

So I sat for the portrait. "Turn to your left, turntoyourrightturnleanforwardturnagainturnturnturnturnturndone!" Damn, what an impersonal sitting! I felt like a cog on an assembly line. No, there was no appointment before mine, nor one after. And it all happened so quickly I wasn't able to make the kind of expressions I had planned. You know, expressions that said, "Hi. I'm just like you. You'd probably like my books. Why don't you buy some right now?"

The photog wasn't pleased AT ALL that I'd brought a coupon with me. I chose the 3 poses that didn't make me puke outright (just wait until next year!) and ordered those. I hurried out, determined to make it to the next Harry P showing so I wouldn't have to wait over an hour. But I stopped to talk to a woman from that floor & carpeting place with the catchy jingle. By then I figured I'd missed the beginning of the movie. Then because it was so warm inside the mall I got a piña colada smoothie—yum! While sucking it down in the car I recalled that I had printouts of movie times for other theatres.

Hm. There were 2 on the way home. One had a new show starting in 20 minutes. If I could find my way back to I-40 quick enough... I did! I drove at a reasonable rate, too. Then we got a highway sign: "Traffic stopped 1/2 mile ahead. Prepare to slow down." Uh oh! But luckily the 15/501 exit was in sight. I took it to get to the Wynnsong 15. Of course the lady 3 people in front of me in the ticket line wanted to ask a million questions of the woman behind the glass. Everyone in line grumbled, but finally she moved on.

By the time I gave the ticket guy inside his stub, it was 4:59 for a 5:00 show. Whew! Took a right at the proper sign, went inside and...

Where was everyone? There were only 7 people there. Was I in the right theatre? Oh no, maybe this was Sarah Palin's Undefeated. Was it playing in this place?

I sat through a dozen commercials (some very old), and then another dozen previews. All the previews concerned white males having an adventure. Some of the males were boys and some were men, but they were all white. One preview seemed to have an auxiliary non-sexual-role girl in it, so I'll keep my eye out for that. (Hugo.)

Then, I'm happy to say, Harry Potter began. Wow! This is what they made the movies for! I was amazed by the tight yet poetical dialogue, and thought everyone gave a top-notch performance. The sets, costumes, makeup and effects were tremendous. The music was a little, well, John Williams-y in a saccharine way in tiny spots (he didn't do the original music for this film, but they were picking up on his theme), but it only detracted from things twice and only for moments each.

I'd brought a pile of Kleenex in because it was such a hot day and I was desperately trying to sweat my makeup off. HP7b turned out to be a three-Kleenex movie. At one point I was afraid I'd sob out loud—all too embarrassing!—but the lady behind me managed to do that first, which kept me in line. She was also the one who softly voiced for all of us, "Don't go," during the King's Cross white-out scene. (No spoilers here!)

Speaking of spoilers, someone on FB had mentioned they didn't understand the mirror shard from the last movie, and when Daniel Radcliffe appeared on The Daily Show last week, someone asked him why the mirror shard wasn't explained, when it was in the book.

All that made me look up just the mirror shard on Wiki and read about what I'd forgotten: Dumbledore's not-so-wise youth and his family problems. Thus I was able to keep up with things when this movie zipped through all that. Still, glad to see it included.

So HP7b gets a hearty recommendation from me! I can't imagine anyone not familiar with the series trying to see it, though. There was a kid in front of me, clearly a HP fan, who left to go to the bathroom and came back. "What happened, Mom?" he asked.

"The girl did something," she replied, after Hermione had dealt with the one horcrux.

Poor Mom, stuck in such a textured movie and not knowing where she was!

But it was a lovely, lovely movie and a completely fabulous ending to the series and so much more interesting than the Lord of the Rings movies. With them it was just fight fight fight, fight some more, fight fight. Insert bits with Frodo and Samwise here and there to keep everyone awake.

With HP there was drama and endings and sweetness and struggle and decisions and "Not my daughter, you bitch!" Bloody marvelous!

Which reminds me: time for a singalong!!!!!!

Afterward I said what the heck and got two slices of pepperoni pizza to go, with no salad in sight.

A great way to begin a vacation. Hope most of my days off are as productive!

Time for Art of the Carolinas!

So it was the second weekend (and the two days before) in November, and time for ART OF THE CAROLINAS!

Jerry’s Artarama likes to bill this as the biggest event of its kind in the world. What it is, is 4 days of workshops, lots given by famous artists and/or artists who really know their stuff (and some not so much), and 3 days of a trade floor that is pure Christmas for artists. We get to see all the latest products--and they’re coming out with SO MUCH these days--and we get to see people on the floor demonstrating them, or barring that, get to talk with experts about technical stuff.

Last year after being completely ignored several times by Winsor & Newton’s website as to a technical question, I was able to ask a guy at the W&N booth about how to make sure that when I reworked an old oil painting the new paint wouldn’t cause any problems. (You know, flake off or something.) A relatively high-ranking member of the company, he had a definite opinion about that but also leaned around the corner to his right and caught the attention of two other folks who knew even more about the chemical makeup of oil paints. I was able to walk away with a confident game plan! That plus he took my story of not getting feedback off the website extremely seriously and said that he would take it up with the people who needed to improve things when he got back.

This year, Thursday began with me getting a late start from the house for my 9:00 class. I don't speed. I kept recalling how a psychic lecturer had once told us how she liked to “time” herself--slip around regular time--when she drove. She said she had driven to our class (this was back when I was in psychic school) from the deeps of Quebec to Durham, NC in 8 hours. A couple of times in my life it had seemed that I’d been able to “time” drives, so I tried to do it now.

And I pulled up at the hotel with 15 minutes to spare. You tell me.

Amazingly, AotC wasn’t quite ready for business yet. Usually they’ve got schedules up on the wall: which classes are meeting where, etc. This time: zippo was ready. This year the hotel opened up two small ballrooms (which are usually part of the trade floor) for classrooms, and we arrived to find a few tables in place and plastic on the floor, but nothing else. Staff, teachers and attendees had to work quickly to get things organized and separation walls put up between us and the next classroom.

Anyway, the all-day class (until 4) was “Abstract Impressionism” with local artist Joe DiGiulio. FABulous!!! It took me deeper into the techniques than I’d gotten so far and gave me a lot of confidence to experiment. We students luxuriated in having entire tables to ourselves (usually Jerry’s crams us 3 to a table, and the tables are only about 24 inches deep). Guess it pays to have an instructor who’s married to the lady who puts the show together?

Anyway, great fun and I got 3 solid paintings out of it. The last one was the largest and on canvas. While I painted the first layer background I kept getting a certain impression of what it reminded me of. “Uh oh,” I said, but went for broke anyway.

Halfway through the spangles Joe came around to look. “Channeling Jasper Johns?” he asked.

“Wonder Woman,” I replied.

Needless to say, this is the painting at the top of the blog. It's 20" square, painted on wrap-around canvas. Here are the two others I did during the morning session, both about 12x9 or 9x12, depending on which way you look at ‘em:



The drive home was horrendous. We’d been under Tropical Depression Ida for a few days, and she wasn’t letting up. It was driving rain, wind, darkness, exhaustion, and rush hour all the way across three counties. Ugh! Let me repeat: ugh, ugh, ugh!

Friday I attended my job, which was knee-deep in (sale!) catalog as well as our regular packages. I’d come in the previous Sunday to work, and with that managed to finish everything that had a deadline that day. Whew!

Saturday I ran a bit early leaving from home, despite having to pack for an overnight stay. (It’s my once-a-year luxury.) I stopped for gas and debated the time. I was going to drop by Lowe’s to return a bit that my gas man hadn’t needed in installing the new gas logs, but decided that I shouldn’t push my luck. I arrived at the hotel a very comfortable 25 minutes ahead of class time and snagged a staff person to tell me where my class was.

This time was also an all-day class, but now was something like “bold acrylics as watercolor using interactive acrylics.” I was interested in both acrylics used as watercolors (I’m terrible at watercolors and desperately need more practice!) and in interactives, of which I’d purchased a sample pack last year and never opened.

On Thursday I’d run into an expert in acrylics who told me that (1) he hated interactives, (2) he hated the interactives manufacturer, and (3) he hated the interactives salespeople. Uh oh! I tried taking it with a few grains of salt.

There were only two of us students in this weekend class. Weekend classes sell out first. Always. That little alarm at the back of my head began to buzz even louder.

Our instructor had laid out several sample paintings. They looked like third graders had done them, blops of color placed across the page in a line. At one point during the class our instructor told us that in his whole life he’d sold maybe two paintings. I asked myself, “Why am I shelling out big bucks for this guy to teach me?”

I’m sorry, but even if it were true and I was teaching a class, if they asked me how my art business was going, I’d tell ‘em that I’d recently had a one-woman show at Windsor Palace. I mean, let ‘em fact-check me afterward. I have a professional impression to make as I teach!

Needless to say, my acrylic watercolors looked like crap, though I got praise for technique and color. The final painting was pretty much copying off of what the instructor had done as he tried out a completely new kind of board to him (and made us do the same!) (ca-ching down the drain! I mean, having your class try out materials you’re unfamiliar with when you’re trying to teach them? Ooh, such a rotten idea!). That painting I might be able to salvage and sell, I dunno. I haven’t finished it yet:


The instructor seemed to be a really nice guy. He told amusing stories and was the kind of person you like spending time with just talking. He was very enthusiastic as well. An excellent sketcher. But he needs to come up with another way to present his class. The only thing I really learned was (1) never ever to use that kind of board again, and (2) that interactives, used in a watercolor manner, stay wet a little longer than regular acrylics and that’s IT. You can’t really “open” them (the whole point of interactives, right?) on watercolor paper the way you can on canvas when you’re painting in an oil paint manner.

Whatever. I raced out of class to pick up my goodie bag (which I hadn’t gotten on Thursday), an event tee shirt, and to do a quick recon of the trade floor before it closed for the night on Saturday. Sundays are always the best day to shop. You get bargains, though you also run the risk of things selling out.

Tried Bahama Breeze next to the Hilton for dinner. Got in right away and had a nice meal if a tad pricey. Was able to demonstrate my Kindle to a curious waitress who had one on her Christmas list. Went back to my hotel room, which meant I also avoided the last of the night rain on I-40, hurrah!

AotC is the one consistent time of the year when I spend a night in a real hotel and order room service for breakfast. I get a clean room, clean bathroom, a mattress that doesn’t come in the shape of a “U,” lots of pillows, and a TV I can watch from either a comfy chair or the bed. The North Raleigh Hilton was certainly classier than the Homestead Inn I’d been staying at up to last year during AotC, and it was handy being just above the show.

I hadn’t noticed anything wrong with the room when I checked in. When I returned from dinner there was a definite chill in the air. On rare occasions I get these chill episodes, so perhaps it was that, but I never heard the heat turn on that evening but the constant fan from the heating unit meant that something was still functioning and maybe the heat itself was completely silent. I turned the heat up. Nothing. Since there was nothing on TV (why didn’t they carry Comedy Central, which I’d counted on for Saturday entertainment?) I curled up in a cold bed and read a very good Dave Barry book on my Kindle. Thank goodness there was a spare blanket in the closet. At one point I considered using the extra towels as blankets as well.

COLD! I kept hitting the thermostat and zippo happened. Finally about 2 AM there was a click at the thermostat, an answering click from the heater, and suddenly the room went equatorial. I had to throw off all covers, as well as the sheet.

By 5:30 AM the heat was finally acting normal. Whew!

One of the perks of an annual hotel trek is ordering room service for a nice fattening breakfast. The hell with price; bring my breakfast to my door! And make sure there's a cute metal dome over the main plate. Mine arrived right on time. They got part of the order wrong, but not the main part. They did eventually bring me tea (I’d used up all the tea that came with the room the previous evening) but forgot any sweetener. Good thing I’d packed some. But the eggs were flat and tasteless. It should be a crime to cook bacon so it tastes awful. The cranberry juice was definitely watered down. I was surprised it was still red. Good tea. I hate to think how much I paid for a little over a cup of hot water, which was all they furnished with the tray. (Heated up some more in my room’s coffee maker.)

Took a nap to make up for the night before and just because I could. Ah, decadence!

Well, that claim to luxury eventually ran its course. Checked out, packed the car tightly so as to make sure I had as much room as possible for what I was going to buy, and waited a few minutes for the trade floor to open. Went through and grabbed the stuff I’d zeroed in on the night before.

Figured out that the way to tell if that Steven Quiller DVD was the same one that I had on VHS, was not to ask the staff at his table--they had no idea--or try to track down the artist himself (though I did pass him in the hall when leaving), but rather to look at the copyright date. Bingo: 2003. I passed on that one and bought the other. After all, Steven Quiller is a god. When I grow up, I want to paint a lot like him. Not exactly, but with the same kind of color ‘tude, simplicity and ease.

Went over to the Matisse brand table and found Joe DG there working (it was in Jerry’s section). Bought some Matisse colored gessos that he’d recommended and he pointed out the cheap but nice Titanium White from Lukas that he likes to use especially for large projects.

In his workshop we’d done his “Black Bag” exercise, in which he gives students a small bag with a few implements and brushes, and then dishes out two colors and a bit of white and tells them to paint. We got a goldish-orange color that was named after an Australian tree (or maybe that was another color), and a bluish green that was called “Southern Ocean.” You see, Matisse is located in Australia so everything is named after Australian stuff. Joe pointed out that “Southern Ocean” had the same color formulation as Thalo Blue (Turquoise), so it’s all marketing, right? The Australian tree sure looked and acted a lot like Quin Gold to me, though I didn’t get a chance to compare formulation codes (which are listed on labels by law).

Hint: Joe told us he liked to use opposite colors on the color wheel but tweaked the idea to use the ones that are just off being primaries. This adds subtlety to paintings. So instead of blue and orange, he kicked the color to a greenish blue and a reddish orange (that turned goldy when diluted). Worked terrifically!

Then I aimed myself at (1) mats. Joe had told us to think of the entire process of framing from a cohesive economics standpoint. Buy the pre-cut available mats to determine (2) what size paper you’ll work on, and then buy (3) frames to fits the mats. So I got a few packs of cheap ones and larger ones as well, hoping they’d fit what I’ve already done at home. Got a block of W/C paper (from Steven Quiller, who was having a very nice sale) and some cheap but okay frames.

Over at the Burning Tree Studios desk they were doing BOGO DVDs. It was difficult to find a second one. I’ve already got a handful at home of good ones, plus a handful of just awful ones, I mean, ptui! Told them that they needed to make sure there were “next” buttons in the gallery sections of their DVDs (the girl was astounded that there weren’t, but there aren’t, not always) (she dutifully took notes to pass along to TPTB) (I love AotC! It’s the direct line to God), and found a second DVD that looked interesting.

Grabbed a few other things and began to think about lunch. The hotel dining room was finishing up brunch and didn’t serve lunch. The hotel’s sports restaurant wouldn’t open until 12 (it was almost that), at which time the entire convention crush would descend along with overdressed Sunday outsiders. Went out to walk and stretch the legs that hadn’t seen much exercise in a few days. Walked past Bahama Breeze, but didn’t want to do that two days in a row. The next place was Denny’s.

Ordered a breakfast from Denny's despite having had a similar one at the hotel early that morning. Did I say “similar”? This one was lovely! Delicious! Cheap! Ahh. I’m so glad there’s no Denny's near my house. I’d go broke and gain about 100 pounds in no time.

Got back to the hotel in time to read Dave Barry a few more minutes and then staked my claim for my place in the afternoon class in Art Marketing, given by wild n crazy Bob Burridge and his wife.


(Sorry, Bob. Next time I'll bring my non-blurry camera and wait for a good pose.)

MAAAN! OMG! They stuffed us full of marketing know-how and hints of how to step out into the Real World of Art as a true Professional. I bought the updated version of their marketing book that I’d bought years ago. When they come through Raleigh again (they usually hit us a couple times a year) I hope Bob will be giving his two-day version of the workshop because it seems there’s an AWFUL lot more I need to know!

So the Burridge and DiGiulio classes were abfab, completely worth the price and more. I should be able to sell significantly more than I have after taking these classes. And (hee hee) Bob told us that we should never, EVER sell off eBay. When I arrived home (kitties were fine!) my computer informed me that I’d just sold a painting there. Think I’ll try selling the early, not-quite-up-to-snuff stuff there until the end of the year, at which point I’ll become a Professional Arteest and turn up my nose at the site in relation to fine art.

How long is it until next November? I loves me that Art of the Carolinas!